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 25 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 90 85 190
Rank change year-on-year -5 +105 +8
Permanent jobs citing Validation 2,089 1,685 1,171
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.92% 3.38% 1.40%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.62% 3.80% 1.74%
Number of salaries quoted 1,240 518 502
10th Percentile £35,000 £38,750 £36,750
25th Percentile £42,500 £41,250 £46,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £56,483 £55,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +2.70% -8.33% -7.69%
75th Percentile £72,500 £71,250 £75,000
90th Percentile £87,500 £91,500 £93,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £51,500 £55,000
% change year-on-year +6.80% -6.36% -4.35%

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 79,636 44,374 67,391
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.20% 88.88% 80.70%
Number of salaries quoted 55,106 25,202 42,338
10th Percentile £31,000 £28,500 £31,250
25th Percentile £41,250 £36,650 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% - -8.33%
75th Percentile £78,750 £75,000 £75,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £96,250 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £47,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year +15.79% -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 25 August 2026.

Salary histogram for Validation in the UK

Validation
Top 18 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 25 August 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 -6 1,925 £56,500 +2.73% 1,154
UK excluding London -24 1,489 £55,000 +6.80% 973
Work from Home +121 603 £56,000 -6.67% 436
London +68 517 £70,000 -12.50% 350
South East -19 438 £59,490 +13.31% 300
North of England +96 401 £55,000 +15.79% 168
North West +86 236 £55,000 +15.35% 88
Midlands -41 213 £45,198 -17.82% 158
South West +5 180 £55,000 +4.56% 172
East of England -64 143 £58,750 +23.68% 132
West Midlands +13 117 £44,720 -18.69% 107
East Midlands -64 95 £46,743 +9.98% 51
North East +9 83 £55,000 +57.14% 40
Yorkshire +4 82 £43,000 +1.18% 42
Scotland +32 76 £65,000 +12.01% 55
Wales -42 33 £60,000 +11.63% 20
Isle of Man - 4 £38,500 - 3
Northern Ireland -78 2 - - 2

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 (2.44%) Apache Airflow
2 48 (2.30%) Apache Spark
3 46 (2.20%) Apache
4 36 (1.72%) Confluence
5 32 (1.53%) SharePoint
6 21 (1.01%) Jupyter
7 13 (0.62%) SAS
8 10 (0.48%) Microsoft Exchange
9 6 (0.29%) WinCC
10 5 (0.24%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 5 (0.24%) CMS
11 4 (0.19%) Kinematics
12 3 (0.14%) Artix
12 3 (0.14%) IIS
12 3 (0.14%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 2 (0.096%) ArcGIS
13 2 (0.096%) Cloud Foundry
14 1 (0.048%) Blackberry Enterprise Server
14 1 (0.048%) Oracle Workflow
14 1 (0.048%) WebSphere
Applications
1 119 (5.70%) Microsoft Excel
2 63 (3.02%) Microsoft Office
3 38 (1.82%) Simulink
4 35 (1.68%) Microsoft Project
5 19 (0.91%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.81%) Spreadsheet
7 13 (0.62%) SOLIDWORKS
8 12 (0.57%) Microsoft PowerPoint
9 9 (0.43%) AutoCAD
10 5 (0.24%) LaTeX
10 5 (0.24%) Mathcad
11 4 (0.19%) Adobe XD
11 4 (0.19%) OrCAD
11 4 (0.19%) Sketch
12 3 (0.14%) Autodesk Inventor
12 3 (0.14%) CANalyzer
12 3 (0.14%) Productboard
12 3 (0.14%) Revit
12 3 (0.14%) Stateflow
13 2 (0.096%) Solid Edge
Business Applications
1 43 (2.06%) SAP S/4HANA
2 41 (1.96%) Dynamics CRM
3 10 (0.48%) SAP MDG
4 9 (0.43%) iTrent
4 9 (0.43%) Oracle EBS
4 9 (0.43%) SAP ERP
5 8 (0.38%) Oracle Applications
6 7 (0.34%) Elite 3E
6 7 (0.34%) NetSuite
7 6 (0.29%) Teamcenter
7 6 (0.29%) Workday HCM
8 5 (0.24%) Loan IQ
8 5 (0.24%) SAP MDG-BP
9 4 (0.19%) Oracle ERP
9 4 (0.19%) Oracle Financials
9 4 (0.19%) SAP MM
10 3 (0.14%) SystmOne
11 2 (0.096%) Oracle Payables
11 2 (0.096%) Oracle Receivables
11 2 (0.096%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 285 (13.64%) Azure
2 252 (12.06%) AWS
3 162 (7.75%) Power Platform
4 91 (4.36%) GCP
5 80 (3.83%) SaaS
6 67 (3.21%) Azure DevOps
7 63 (3.02%) Microsoft 365
8 57 (2.73%) GitHub
9 51 (2.44%) Serverless
10 40 (1.91%) Amazon S3
11 36 (1.72%) Dynamics 365
12 33 (1.58%) Entra ID
13 29 (1.39%) GitHub Actions
14 28 (1.34%) Microsoft Copilot
15 22 (1.05%) Amazon EMR
16 21 (1.01%) Amazon EC2
16 21 (1.01%) PowerApps
16 21 (1.01%) Snowflake
17 20 (0.96%) Cloud Computing
18 19 (0.91%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 65 (3.11%) Broadband
2 62 (2.97%) Firewall
3 58 (2.78%) DNS
4 39 (1.87%) Wireless
5 34 (1.63%) Network Security
6 32 (1.53%) WAN
7 31 (1.48%) TCP/IP
8 30 (1.44%) VPN
9 24 (1.15%) Ethernet
10 22 (1.05%) LAN
11 20 (0.96%) SD-WAN
12 18 (0.86%) MQTT
12 18 (0.86%) VLAN
13 17 (0.81%) BGP
13 17 (0.81%) OSPF
13 17 (0.81%) Wi-Fi
13 17 (0.81%) Wireshark
14 16 (0.77%) Modbus
15 15 (0.72%) Internet
16 13 (0.62%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 148 (7.08%) Power BI
2 56 (2.68%) Data Warehouse
3 51 (2.44%) PostgreSQL
4 49 (2.35%) Metadata
5 46 (2.20%) SQL Server
6 45 (2.15%) Tableau
7 44 (2.11%) Data Lake
8 34 (1.63%) MongoDB
9 28 (1.34%) Amazon Athena
9 28 (1.34%) Relational Database
10 27 (1.29%) BigQuery
11 25 (1.20%) DynamoDB
12 23 (1.10%) Semantic Layer
13 21 (1.01%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 20 (0.96%) Azure SQL Database
15 18 (0.86%) Big Data
15 18 (0.86%) MySQL
16 16 (0.77%) NoSQL
17 15 (0.72%) Power Query
18 14 (0.67%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 127 (6.08%) JIRA
2 105 (5.03%) Git
3 53 (2.54%) Jenkins
4 47 (2.25%) GitLab
5 36 (1.72%) Rational DOORS
6 28 (1.34%) Selenium
7 24 (1.15%) Postman
8 22 (1.05%) Snyk
9 21 (1.01%) Cypress.io
10 18 (0.86%) LabVIEW
11 16 (0.77%) JMeter
12 15 (0.72%) Cucumber
13 12 (0.57%) Burp Suite
14 11 (0.53%) REST Assured
15 10 (0.48%) Gatling
15 10 (0.48%) TeamCity
16 8 (0.38%) Rational Rhapsody
16 8 (0.38%) Zephyr
17 7 (0.34%) Hudson
17 7 (0.34%) MLflow
General
1 707 (33.84%) Social Skills
2 565 (27.05%) Finance
3 506 (24.22%) Analytical Skills
4 203 (9.72%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 199 (9.53%) Aerospace
6 185 (8.86%) Manufacturing
7 175 (8.38%) Electronics
8 123 (5.89%) Law
9 106 (5.07%) Banking
10 84 (4.02%) Public Sector
11 80 (3.83%) Retail
12 78 (3.73%) Marketing
13 73 (3.49%) Pharmaceutical
14 71 (3.40%) Organisational Skills
15 59 (2.82%) Legal
16 58 (2.78%) Automotive
17 51 (2.44%) Telecoms
18 46 (2.20%) Games
19 44 (2.11%) Influencing Skills
20 39 (1.87%) Documentation Skills
Job Titles
1 379 (18.14%) Senior
2 264 (12.64%) Analyst
3 216 (10.34%) Systems Engineer
4 190 (9.10%) Lead
5 126 (6.03%) Test Engineer
6 116 (5.55%) Architect
7 101 (4.83%) Data Engineer
8 91 (4.36%) Developer
9 82 (3.93%) Business Analyst
9 82 (3.93%) Consultant
10 76 (3.64%) Software Engineer
11 67 (3.21%) Data Analyst
12 65 (3.11%) Principal Engineer
13 63 (3.02%) Validation Engineer
14 50 (2.39%) Embedded Engineer
15 49 (2.35%) Support Engineer
16 47 (2.25%) Data Scientist
17 44 (2.11%) Electronics Engineer
18 43 (2.06%) Network Engineer
19 42 (2.01%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 74 (3.54%) Terraform
2 49 (2.35%) RESTful
3 45 (2.15%) Kafka
4 43 (2.06%) REST
5 40 (1.91%) Node.js
6 34 (1.63%) JSON
7 32 (1.53%) PySpark
8 31 (1.48%) Playwright
8 31 (1.48%) XML
9 30 (1.44%) .NET
10 27 (1.29%) LDAP
10 27 (1.29%) Middleware
11 22 (1.05%) CSS
12 21 (1.01%) HTML
12 21 (1.01%) ModSecurity
12 21 (1.01%) React
13 19 (0.91%) FastAPI
13 19 (0.91%) OAuth
13 19 (0.91%) Regular Expression
13 19 (0.91%) XMPP
Miscellaneous
1 152 (7.28%) Cloud Native
2 127 (6.08%) Onboarding
3 116 (5.55%) Management Information System
4 78 (3.73%) Product Ownership
5 74 (3.54%) Data Centre
6 59 (2.82%) Data Structures
6 59 (2.82%) Embedded Systems
7 56 (2.68%) Driving Licence
7 56 (2.68%) Enterprise Software
8 53 (2.54%) Algorithms
8 53 (2.54%) Distributed Systems
9 48 (2.30%) Low-Code
10 41 (1.96%) AI Agents
11 40 (1.91%) Life Science
12 39 (1.87%) Analytical Mindset
13 37 (1.77%) Legacy Systems
14 35 (1.68%) Video\Live Streaming
15 34 (1.63%) Robotics
16 33 (1.58%) IoT
17 32 (1.53%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 126 (6.03%) Linux
2 92 (4.40%) Windows
3 35 (1.68%) Windows Server
4 21 (1.01%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 20 (0.96%) Unix
6 9 (0.43%) Android
6 9 (0.43%) Embedded Linux
7 6 (0.29%) FreeRTOS
7 6 (0.29%) Mac OS
8 5 (0.24%) Kali Linux
9 4 (0.19%) Mac OS X
10 2 (0.096%) Apple iOS
10 2 (0.096%) Robot Operating System
10 2 (0.096%) ThreadX
10 2 (0.096%) VMS
10 2 (0.096%) Windows 10
11 1 (0.048%) AIX
11 1 (0.048%) OpenWrt
Processes & Methodologies
1 537 (25.71%) Problem-Solving
2 499 (23.89%) Continuous Improvement
3 424 (20.30%) Agile
4 377 (18.05%) AI
5 312 (14.94%) Verification and Validation
6 302 (14.46%) CI/CD
7 275 (13.16%) Test Automation
8 269 (12.88%) Stakeholder Management
9 260 (12.45%) Analytics
10 248 (11.87%) Migration
11 238 (11.39%) Mentoring
12 228 (10.91%) Decision-Making
13 220 (10.53%) Software Engineering
14 199 (9.53%) DevOps
15 188 (9.00%) Data Analysis
16 185 (8.86%) Business Intelligence
16 185 (8.86%) Machine Learning
16 185 (8.86%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 172 (8.23%) Roadmaps
18 166 (7.95%) ERP
Programming Languages
1 466 (22.31%) Python
2 387 (18.53%) SQL
3 96 (4.60%) Java
4 87 (4.16%) C++
5 79 (3.78%) C
6 62 (2.97%) JavaScript
7 55 (2.63%) Go
8 53 (2.54%) MATLAB
9 52 (2.49%) C#
10 30 (1.44%) Bash
11 28 (1.34%) Embedded C
11 28 (1.34%) PowerShell
12 22 (1.05%) Scala
13 20 (0.96%) TypeScript
14 19 (0.91%) R
15 18 (0.86%) Embedded C++
16 14 (0.67%) T-SQL
17 11 (0.53%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 9 (0.43%) ABAP
18 9 (0.43%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 455 (21.78%) Degree
2 400 (19.15%) Security Cleared
3 266 (12.73%) SC Cleared
4 128 (6.13%) BPSS Clearance
5 107 (5.12%) DV Cleared
6 84 (4.02%) Master's Degree
7 46 (2.20%) Computer Science Degree
8 38 (1.82%) CISSP
9 37 (1.77%) PhD
10 32 (1.53%) Chartered Engineer
10 32 (1.53%) HNC
11 30 (1.44%) CISM
11 30 (1.44%) PMI Certification
12 29 (1.39%) HND
13 26 (1.24%) ACCA
14 25 (1.20%) CIMA
15 24 (1.15%) AWS Certification
16 23 (1.10%) Azure Certification
17 19 (0.91%) ISTQB
17 19 (0.91%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 311 (14.89%) Data Quality
2 285 (13.64%) QA
3 80 (3.83%) Accessibility
4 54 (2.58%) GDPR
5 37 (1.77%) GRC
6 26 (1.24%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 25 (1.20%) NIST
8 24 (1.15%) IEC 61508
9 21 (1.01%) GxP
9 21 (1.01%) SLA
10 18 (0.86%) PMO
11 17 (0.81%) WCAG
12 15 (0.72%) ISO 26262
13 14 (0.67%) GAAP
13 14 (0.67%) IFRS
13 14 (0.67%) ISO 9001
14 13 (0.62%) GMP
15 11 (0.53%) SOC 2
16 9 (0.43%) COBIT
16 9 (0.43%) Def Stans
System Software
1 79 (3.78%) Firmware
2 78 (3.73%) Docker
3 47 (2.25%) Active Directory
4 34 (1.63%) Embedded Firmware
5 28 (1.34%) Virtual Machines
6 21 (1.01%) vSphere
7 12 (0.57%) VMware Infrastructure
8 5 (0.24%) KVM
9 4 (0.19%) Hyper-V
10 2 (0.096%) iptables
10 2 (0.096%) ProxySG
10 2 (0.096%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.048%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.048%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 79 (3.78%) Kubernetes
2 45 (2.15%) Grafana
3 27 (1.29%) Functional Safety
4 26 (1.24%) Ansible
5 15 (0.72%) Prometheus
5 15 (0.72%) Single Sign-On
6 10 (0.48%) Cilium
7 8 (0.38%) Puppet
8 7 (0.34%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
8 7 (0.34%) Kibana
8 7 (0.34%) Microsoft Intune
9 6 (0.29%) Nessus
9 6 (0.29%) Nmap
10 5 (0.24%) FortiGate
10 5 (0.24%) SCCM
10 5 (0.24%) WMI
11 4 (0.19%) HP Fortify
11 4 (0.19%) Kubeflow
12 3 (0.14%) Argo
13 2 (0.096%) kaniko
Vendors
1 270 (12.92%) Microsoft
2 116 (5.55%) SAP
3 98 (4.69%) Oracle
4 57 (2.73%) Salesforce
5 56 (2.68%) Databricks
6 48 (2.30%) Cisco
6 48 (2.30%) ServiceNow
7 43 (2.06%) Google
8 31 (1.48%) VMware
9 29 (1.39%) CrowdStrike
9 29 (1.39%) EMC
10 28 (1.34%) Palo Alto
11 27 (1.29%) Red Hat
12 22 (1.05%) Tenable
13 17 (0.81%) IBM
13 17 (0.81%) Splunk
14 15 (0.72%) McAfee
14 15 (0.72%) Workday
15 14 (0.67%) Foundry
15 14 (0.67%) Siemens