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 27 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 144 189 176
Rank change year-on-year +45 -13 -22
Permanent jobs citing Validation 1,057 777 1,299
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.52% 1.64% 1.72%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.92% 1.76% 1.95%
Number of salaries quoted 544 308 770
10th Percentile £36,250 £38,275 £34,750
25th Percentile £44,972 £47,000 £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 £78,750 £71,250 £72,433
90th Percentile £92,125 £97,500 £83,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £55,000 £51,528
% change year-on-year - +6.74% -6.31%

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 55,039 44,035 66,669
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 78.92% 92.97% 88.39%
Number of salaries quoted 32,968 22,033 51,326
10th Percentile £29,000 £33,750 £29,487
25th Percentile £38,541 £45,651 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,001 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -12.00%
75th Percentile £76,250 £81,250 £75,000
90th Percentile £97,500 £102,500 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% -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 27 February 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 27 February 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 +48 917 £60,000 +7.14% 667
UK excluding London +17 650 £55,000 - 576
London +63 309 £75,000 +7.14% 182
Work from Home +105 300 £60,000 +7.14% 283
South East +52 197 £54,250 +3.33% 186
North of England +3 130 £60,000 +26.32% 110
Midlands +5 110 £37,500 -30.23% 112
North West +15 90 £58,000 +21.64% 59
East of England +2 89 £59,000 +7.27% 84
South West +8 69 £65,000 +23.57% 73
West Midlands +7 66 £41,108 -34.23% 78
East Midlands -9 43 £35,000 -32.69% 33
Scotland -17 41 £42,000 -27.63% 22
Yorkshire -31 29 £65,000 +42.94% 37
Wales -3 12 £61,250 +24.74% 6
North East -7 11 £46,999 +13.25% 15
Northern Ireland -28 3 - - 4

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 36 (3.41%) Apache Airflow
2 26 (2.46%) Apache Spark
3 21 (1.99%) ArcGIS
4 20 (1.89%) Apache
5 19 (1.80%) Confluence
6 13 (1.23%) Microsoft Exchange
7 12 (1.14%) Appian
7 12 (1.14%) SharePoint
8 10 (0.95%) CMS
9 4 (0.38%) Headless CMS
10 2 (0.19%) Kinematics
10 2 (0.19%) WordPress
11 1 (0.095%) Anypoint
11 1 (0.095%) FileNet
11 1 (0.095%) Jupyter
11 1 (0.095%) SAS
Applications
1 90 (8.51%) Microsoft Excel
2 59 (5.58%) Microsoft Office
3 19 (1.80%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 19 (1.80%) MS Visio
4 7 (0.66%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 5 (0.47%) Simulink
6 4 (0.38%) Fusion 360
6 4 (0.38%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.19%) Adobe After Effects
7 2 (0.19%) Adobe Captivate
7 2 (0.19%) Adobe Illustrator
7 2 (0.19%) Adobe Premiere
7 2 (0.19%) Elementor
7 2 (0.19%) Microsoft Project
7 2 (0.19%) Oracle Smart View
7 2 (0.19%) Photoshop
7 2 (0.19%) Weka
8 1 (0.095%) CATIA
8 1 (0.095%) GNU Octave
8 1 (0.095%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 26 (2.46%) SAP S/4HANA
2 13 (1.23%) Dynamics CRM
3 8 (0.76%) Oracle ERP
4 7 (0.66%) Workday HCM
5 4 (0.38%) Markit EDM
5 4 (0.38%) SAP BPC
5 4 (0.38%) SAP ERP
6 3 (0.28%) Elite 3E
6 3 (0.28%) SAP CX
6 3 (0.28%) SAP MDG
7 2 (0.19%) IBM Planning Analytics
7 2 (0.19%) Primavera
7 2 (0.19%) SAP FSCM
8 1 (0.095%) Loan IQ
8 1 (0.095%) Magento
8 1 (0.095%) NetSuite
8 1 (0.095%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 1 (0.095%) Raiser’s Edge
8 1 (0.095%) Remedy ITSM
8 1 (0.095%) SAP Business ByDesign
Cloud Services
1 172 (16.27%) Azure
2 97 (9.18%) AWS
2 97 (9.18%) Power Platform
3 49 (4.64%) SaaS
4 44 (4.16%) Azure DevOps
5 36 (3.41%) GCP
6 29 (2.74%) Snowflake
7 26 (2.46%) Azure Data Factory
7 26 (2.46%) Dynamics 365
8 24 (2.27%) Amazon S3
8 24 (2.27%) dbt
9 22 (2.08%) Power Automate
10 19 (1.80%) Entra ID
10 19 (1.80%) GitHub
11 16 (1.51%) Microsoft 365
12 14 (1.32%) OpenShift
13 12 (1.14%) Anthropic Claude
13 12 (1.14%) Azure AI
14 11 (1.04%) Figma
14 11 (1.04%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 22 (2.08%) CHAP
2 14 (1.32%) WAN
3 12 (1.14%) 5G
3 12 (1.14%) Firewall
3 12 (1.14%) SD-WAN
3 12 (1.14%) TCP/IP
4 8 (0.76%) Broadband
4 8 (0.76%) DNS
4 8 (0.76%) HTTP
4 8 (0.76%) MQTT
4 8 (0.76%) Wireless
5 7 (0.66%) LAN
5 7 (0.66%) Modbus
6 6 (0.57%) Multicast
7 5 (0.47%) Cisco IOS
7 5 (0.47%) VoIP
7 5 (0.47%) WAAS
8 4 (0.38%) ATM
8 4 (0.38%) Internet
8 4 (0.38%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 90 (8.51%) Power BI
2 41 (3.88%) SQL Server
3 35 (3.31%) Tableau
4 33 (3.12%) Data Warehouse
5 29 (2.74%) Metadata
6 28 (2.65%) GIS
7 26 (2.46%) Relational Database
8 20 (1.89%) QGIS
8 20 (1.89%) Spatial Data
9 15 (1.42%) Oracle Reports
9 15 (1.42%) PostgreSQL
10 13 (1.23%) Azure SQL Database
11 12 (1.14%) Data Lake
11 12 (1.14%) Parquet
11 12 (1.14%) Pinecone
11 12 (1.14%) Spark SQL
12 11 (1.04%) Apache Hive
12 11 (1.04%) Impala
12 11 (1.04%) Oracle Database
12 11 (1.04%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 62 (5.87%) JIRA
2 58 (5.49%) Git
3 46 (4.35%) Rational DOORS
4 21 (1.99%) Jenkins
5 19 (1.80%) Postman
6 16 (1.51%) LabVIEW
7 15 (1.42%) GitLab
8 14 (1.32%) MLflow
9 13 (1.23%) Cucumber
9 13 (1.23%) TestRail
10 11 (1.04%) Eclipse
10 11 (1.04%) IBM UrbanCode
10 11 (1.04%) JMeter
11 9 (0.85%) Selenium
12 8 (0.76%) SoapUI
13 7 (0.66%) Locust
14 6 (0.57%) LoadRunner
14 6 (0.57%) Subversion
15 5 (0.47%) SpecFlow
15 5 (0.47%) Visual Studio
General
1 389 (36.80%) Social Skills
2 304 (28.76%) Finance
3 252 (23.84%) Analytical Skills
4 85 (8.04%) Banking
5 57 (5.39%) Manufacturing
6 53 (5.01%) Electronics
7 51 (4.82%) Financial Institution
8 49 (4.64%) Aerospace
9 45 (4.26%) Marketing
9 45 (4.26%) Presentation Skills
10 43 (4.07%) Legal
11 37 (3.50%) Law
11 37 (3.50%) Public Sector
12 34 (3.22%) Organisational Skills
13 33 (3.12%) Retail
14 29 (2.74%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 29 (2.74%) Telecoms
15 20 (1.89%) Billing
15 20 (1.89%) Documentation Skills
16 18 (1.70%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 181 (17.12%) Analyst
2 159 (15.04%) Senior
3 126 (11.92%) Systems Engineer
4 78 (7.38%) Lead
5 70 (6.62%) Business Analyst
6 65 (6.15%) Architect
7 55 (5.20%) Validation Engineer
8 50 (4.73%) Test Engineer
9 49 (4.64%) Consultant
10 48 (4.54%) Integration Engineer
11 45 (4.26%) Data Analyst
12 40 (3.78%) Junior
13 39 (3.69%) Senior Systems Engineer
14 35 (3.31%) Systems Integration Engineer
15 33 (3.12%) Principal Engineer
16 32 (3.03%) Data Engineer
17 29 (2.74%) Verification Engineer
18 28 (2.65%) Developer
18 28 (2.65%) Solutions Architect
19 26 (2.46%) Principal Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 49 (4.64%) REST
2 40 (3.78%) PyTorch
3 36 (3.41%) Pandas
4 28 (2.65%) JSON
5 26 (2.46%) Middleware
6 24 (2.27%) pytest
7 23 (2.18%) XML
8 19 (1.80%) TensorFlow
9 17 (1.61%) NumPy
9 17 (1.61%) OAuth
10 16 (1.51%) JWT
10 16 (1.51%) PySpark
10 16 (1.51%) scikit-learn
10 16 (1.51%) Swagger
10 16 (1.51%) Web Services
11 14 (1.32%) .NET
11 14 (1.32%) React
12 13 (1.23%) FastAPI
12 13 (1.23%) Hugging Face
12 13 (1.23%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 67 (6.34%) Management Information System
2 49 (4.64%) Onboarding
3 38 (3.60%) Data Structures
4 33 (3.12%) Product Ownership
5 32 (3.03%) Algorithms
6 31 (2.93%) Self-Motivation
7 27 (2.55%) Legacy Systems
8 24 (2.27%) Low-Code
9 22 (2.08%) Life Science
10 18 (1.70%) Analytical Mindset
10 18 (1.70%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 16 (1.51%) SWIFT Messaging Network
12 15 (1.42%) Enterprise Software
13 13 (1.23%) Blockchain
13 13 (1.23%) FPGA
13 13 (1.23%) Reinsurance
14 12 (1.14%) SCADA
15 11 (1.04%) Data Centre
15 11 (1.04%) Embedded Systems
15 11 (1.04%) Self-Driving Car
Operating Systems
1 50 (4.73%) Windows
2 48 (4.54%) Linux
3 15 (1.42%) Unix
4 12 (1.14%) Android
5 9 (0.85%) Windows Server
6 7 (0.66%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 4 (0.38%) Apple iOS
7 4 (0.38%) CentOS
8 3 (0.28%) Robot Operating System
9 2 (0.19%) AIX
9 2 (0.19%) Mac OS
9 2 (0.19%) VxWorks
10 1 (0.095%) Rocky
10 1 (0.095%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.095%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 284 (26.87%) Agile
2 243 (22.99%) Problem-Solving
3 176 (16.65%) Verification and Validation
4 166 (15.70%) Continuous Improvement
5 160 (15.14%) Analytics
6 135 (12.77%) AI
6 135 (12.77%) Data Validation
7 132 (12.49%) Migration
8 122 (11.54%) CI/CD
9 120 (11.35%) Systems Engineering
10 119 (11.26%) Test Automation
11 117 (11.07%) Stakeholder Management
12 116 (10.97%) Business Intelligence
13 114 (10.79%) DevOps
14 105 (9.93%) Mentoring
15 102 (9.65%) ETL
15 102 (9.65%) User Acceptance Testing
16 99 (9.37%) Data Modelling
17 98 (9.27%) Project Management
18 97 (9.18%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 232 (21.95%) SQL
2 228 (21.57%) Python
3 41 (3.88%) Java
4 37 (3.50%) PowerShell
5 36 (3.41%) C
5 36 (3.41%) C++
6 24 (2.27%) JavaScript
7 21 (1.99%) Bash
8 20 (1.89%) MATLAB
9 17 (1.61%) T-SQL
10 13 (1.23%) C#
10 13 (1.23%) TypeScript
11 12 (1.14%) R
12 10 (0.95%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 8 (0.76%) VBA
14 7 (0.66%) Go
14 7 (0.66%) VB
15 5 (0.47%) PHP
15 5 (0.47%) PL/SQL
16 4 (0.38%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 261 (24.69%) Degree
2 146 (13.81%) Security Cleared
3 128 (12.11%) BPSS Clearance
4 57 (5.39%) SC Cleared
5 52 (4.92%) Master's Degree
6 42 (3.97%) Computer Science Degree
7 26 (2.46%) CISA
7 26 (2.46%) CISSP
8 25 (2.37%) CISM
9 23 (2.18%) CGEIT
9 23 (2.18%) DV Cleared
9 23 (2.18%) SANS
10 22 (2.08%) FFIEC
10 22 (2.08%) PMI Certification
10 22 (2.08%) PMP
11 19 (1.80%) Chartered Engineer
12 16 (1.51%) HNC
12 16 (1.51%) ISTQB
13 12 (1.14%) HND
14 8 (0.76%) ACCA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 136 (12.87%) Data Quality
2 118 (11.16%) QA
3 55 (5.20%) GDPR
4 53 (5.01%) Accessibility
5 44 (4.16%) ISO/IEC 15288
6 22 (2.08%) COBIT
6 22 (2.08%) NIST
7 17 (1.61%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 17 (1.61%) SLA
8 16 (1.51%) ISO 20022
9 14 (1.32%) GRC
10 13 (1.23%) ISO/IEC 12207
10 13 (1.23%) SEPA
11 12 (1.14%) WCAG
12 10 (0.95%) 21 CFR Part 11
12 10 (0.95%) Good Clinical Practice
13 9 (0.85%) IFRS
13 9 (0.85%) ISO 9001
13 9 (0.85%) TARGET2
14 8 (0.76%) GxP
System Software
1 61 (5.77%) Docker
2 26 (2.46%) Firmware
3 19 (1.80%) Active Directory
4 11 (1.04%) VMware Infrastructure
5 6 (0.57%) Hyper-V
6 5 (0.47%) Embedded Firmware
7 4 (0.38%) KVM
7 4 (0.38%) VMware ESXi
7 4 (0.38%) vSphere
8 2 (0.19%) Ceph
8 2 (0.19%) Lustre
8 2 (0.19%) Slurm Workload Manager
9 1 (0.095%) iptables
9 1 (0.095%) OpenAM
9 1 (0.095%) OpenDJ
9 1 (0.095%) OpenIDM
9 1 (0.095%) pfSense
9 1 (0.095%) Terminal Services
9 1 (0.095%) vCloud
9 1 (0.095%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 54 (5.11%) Kubernetes
2 37 (3.50%) Terraform
3 22 (2.08%) Ansible
3 22 (2.08%) Grafana
4 13 (1.23%) Prometheus
5 9 (0.85%) SCCM
6 7 (0.66%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
6 7 (0.66%) Microsoft Intune
7 6 (0.57%) Puppet
8 5 (0.47%) Argo
8 5 (0.47%) Rancher
8 5 (0.47%) yum
9 2 (0.19%) BMC PATROL
9 2 (0.19%) Nessus
9 2 (0.19%) PowerCLI
10 1 (0.095%) Control-M
10 1 (0.095%) Docker Swarm
10 1 (0.095%) Kibana
10 1 (0.095%) Single Sign-On
10 1 (0.095%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 136 (12.87%) Microsoft
2 61 (5.77%) SAP
3 54 (5.11%) Oracle
4 36 (3.41%) Salesforce
5 25 (2.37%) IBM
6 20 (1.89%) Cisco
7 19 (1.80%) Foundry
8 17 (1.61%) OpenAI
9 15 (1.42%) Red Hat
10 14 (1.32%) ServiceNow
10 14 (1.32%) Software AG
10 14 (1.32%) VMware
11 13 (1.23%) Adobe
12 12 (1.14%) Automation Anywhere
12 12 (1.14%) Databricks
12 12 (1.14%) Google
12 12 (1.14%) UiPath
13 10 (0.95%) Workday
14 9 (0.85%) Siemens
15 8 (0.76%) Splunk