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

6 months to
18 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 119 82 206
Rank change year-on-year -37 +124 -17
Permanent jobs citing Validation 1,499 1,618 1,432
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.60% 3.62% 1.32%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.20% 3.91% 1.61%
Number of salaries quoted 885 455 776
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 68,264 41,362 89,059
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 72.88% 92.48% 81.88%
Number of salaries quoted 46,974 22,138 63,125
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,822 £29,750
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 18 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 18 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 -34 1,357 £55,000 -3.51% 792
UK excluding London -52 1,009 £52,500 -4.55% 688
Work from Home +118 483 £55,000 -9.84% 312
London +69 382 £75,000 - 255
South East -41 305 £55,000 - 240
North of England +76 280 £55,000 +15.35% 129
North West +81 179 £55,000 +15.35% 60
Midlands -75 162 £40,000 -30.43% 97
East of England -73 111 £60,000 +5.26% 74
South West -54 96 £53,000 -3.64% 104
West Midlands -3 95 £44,000 -29.60% 56
East Midlands -83 65 £30,000 -39.70% 41
Yorkshire -1 60 £50,000 +18.69% 46
North East -12 41 £55,000 +15.79% 25
Scotland -3 39 £42,500 -26.77% 34
Wales -36 16 £45,750 -23.75% 8
Northern Ireland -31 2 - - 24

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 50 (3.34%) Apache Airflow
2 45 (3.00%) Apache Spark
3 43 (2.87%) 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 8 (0.53%) SAS
9 7 (0.47%) Appian
10 5 (0.33%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 4 (0.27%) CMS
11 4 (0.27%) Kinematics
12 3 (0.20%) Artix
13 2 (0.13%) IIS
14 1 (0.067%) Oracle Workflow
14 1 (0.067%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 86 (5.74%) Microsoft Excel
2 43 (2.87%) Microsoft Office
3 23 (1.53%) Microsoft Project
4 19 (1.27%) MS Visio
5 16 (1.07%) Simulink
6 15 (1.00%) Microsoft PowerPoint
7 8 (0.53%) SOLIDWORKS
7 8 (0.53%) Spreadsheet
8 5 (0.33%) AutoCAD
9 4 (0.27%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 4 (0.27%) Adobe XD
9 4 (0.27%) CANalyzer
9 4 (0.27%) Sketch
10 3 (0.20%) Autodesk Inventor
10 3 (0.20%) Productboard
10 3 (0.20%) Solid Edge
10 3 (0.20%) Stateflow
11 1 (0.067%) CATIA
11 1 (0.067%) Revit
11 1 (0.067%) Trello
Business Applications
1 41 (2.74%) SAP S/4HANA
2 37 (2.47%) 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
1 219 (14.61%) Azure
2 184 (12.27%) AWS
3 139 (9.27%) Power Platform
4 79 (5.27%) GCP
5 68 (4.54%) SaaS
6 56 (3.74%) Azure DevOps
7 39 (2.60%) GitHub
8 38 (2.54%) Microsoft 365
8 38 (2.54%) Serverless
9 35 (2.33%) Amazon S3
10 33 (2.20%) Dynamics 365
11 29 (1.93%) Azure Data Factory
12 25 (1.67%) Snowflake
13 21 (1.40%) Entra ID
14 19 (1.27%) dbt
14 19 (1.27%) Power Automate
15 18 (1.20%) GitHub Actions
16 15 (1.00%) OpenShift
17 14 (0.93%) Amazon EC2
18 13 (0.87%) Amazon EMR
Communications & Networking
1 71 (4.74%) Broadband
2 46 (3.07%) Firewall
3 34 (2.27%) DNS
4 22 (1.47%) WAN
4 22 (1.47%) Wireless
5 20 (1.33%) TCP/IP
6 19 (1.27%) CHAP
7 16 (1.07%) Network Security
7 16 (1.07%) SD-WAN
8 15 (1.00%) VPN
9 14 (0.93%) 5G
10 12 (0.80%) Wi-Fi
11 11 (0.73%) MQTT
12 10 (0.67%) Ethernet
12 10 (0.67%) HTTP
12 10 (0.67%) LAN
12 10 (0.67%) Wireshark
13 9 (0.60%) NAS
14 7 (0.47%) Multicast
14 7 (0.47%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 133 (8.87%) Power BI
2 56 (3.74%) Tableau
3 53 (3.54%) PostgreSQL
4 49 (3.27%) 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 23 (1.53%) Data Lake
10 23 (1.53%) GIS
10 23 (1.53%) Semantic Layer
11 22 (1.47%) Azure SQL Database
12 20 (1.33%) Spatial Data
13 19 (1.27%) Spark SQL
14 17 (1.13%) Oracle Database
15 15 (1.00%) Amazon Athena
15 15 (1.00%) DynamoDB
15 15 (1.00%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 75 (5.00%) JIRA
2 68 (4.54%) Git
3 47 (3.14%) Jenkins
4 35 (2.33%) GitLab
5 30 (2.00%) Rational DOORS
6 22 (1.47%) Snyk
7 16 (1.07%) Postman
8 15 (1.00%) Selenium
9 13 (0.87%) IBM UrbanCode
9 13 (0.87%) LabVIEW
10 11 (0.73%) Cucumber
10 11 (0.73%) JMeter
10 11 (0.73%) MLflow
11 10 (0.67%) Cypress.io
11 10 (0.67%) Eclipse
11 10 (0.67%) TeamCity
12 6 (0.40%) Rational Rhapsody
12 6 (0.40%) REST Assured
13 5 (0.33%) Locust
13 5 (0.33%) Robot Framework
General
1 470 (31.35%) Social Skills
2 398 (26.55%) Finance
3 323 (21.55%) Analytical Skills
4 117 (7.81%) Aerospace
5 112 (7.47%) Manufacturing
6 102 (6.80%) Electronics
7 91 (6.07%) Banking
8 89 (5.94%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 58 (3.87%) Legal
10 54 (3.60%) Public Sector
10 54 (3.60%) Retail
11 53 (3.54%) Law
12 44 (2.94%) Pharmaceutical
13 42 (2.80%) Marketing
14 40 (2.67%) Games
15 38 (2.54%) Automotive
15 38 (2.54%) Organisational Skills
16 30 (2.00%) Financial Institution
17 27 (1.80%) Presentation Skills
18 24 (1.60%) Documentation Skills
Job Titles
1 253 (16.88%) Senior
2 233 (15.54%) Analyst
3 136 (9.07%) Systems Engineer
4 112 (7.47%) Lead
5 101 (6.74%) Architect
5 101 (6.74%) Test Engineer
6 86 (5.74%) Validation Engineer
7 81 (5.40%) Business Analyst
8 75 (5.00%) Data Engineer
9 68 (4.54%) Consultant
9 68 (4.54%) Developer
10 64 (4.27%) Data Analyst
11 45 (3.00%) Integration Engineer
11 45 (3.00%) Principal Engineer
12 42 (2.80%) Embedded Engineer
13 36 (2.40%) IT Manager
14 34 (2.27%) Security Architect
14 34 (2.27%) Senior Systems Engineer
14 34 (2.27%) Support Engineer
15 32 (2.13%) Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 43 (2.87%) RESTful
2 39 (2.60%) REST
3 35 (2.33%) PyTorch
4 33 (2.20%) JSON
5 32 (2.13%) PySpark
6 28 (1.87%) Kafka
6 28 (1.87%) Node.js
7 26 (1.73%) Pandas
8 25 (1.67%) Middleware
8 25 (1.67%) XML
9 24 (1.60%) pytest
10 23 (1.53%) .NET
11 19 (1.27%) Playwright
11 19 (1.27%) Swagger
12 18 (1.20%) Regular Expression
12 18 (1.20%) XMPP
13 15 (1.00%) LDAP
13 15 (1.00%) OAuth
13 15 (1.00%) TensorFlow
14 14 (0.93%) FastAPI
Miscellaneous
1 90 (6.00%) Cloud Native
2 69 (4.60%) Onboarding
3 68 (4.54%) Management Information System
4 65 (4.34%) Data Structures
5 54 (3.60%) Algorithms
6 50 (3.34%) Low-Code
7 40 (2.67%) Product Ownership
8 39 (2.60%) Embedded Systems
9 37 (2.47%) Driving Licence
10 34 (2.27%) Self-Motivation
11 33 (2.20%) Distributed Systems
12 32 (2.13%) Data Centre
12 32 (2.13%) Legacy Systems
13 31 (2.07%) Analytical Mindset
13 31 (2.07%) Enterprise Software
13 31 (2.07%) Video\Live Streaming
14 28 (1.87%) Life Science
15 24 (1.60%) FPGA
16 22 (1.47%) Robotics
17 18 (1.20%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 92 (6.14%) Linux
2 64 (4.27%) Windows
3 26 (1.73%) Windows Server
4 25 (1.67%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 23 (1.53%) Unix
6 8 (0.53%) 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
1 325 (21.68%) Problem-Solving
2 312 (20.81%) Continuous Improvement
3 305 (20.35%) Agile
4 264 (17.61%) AI
5 239 (15.94%) CI/CD
6 213 (14.21%) Test Automation
7 212 (14.14%) Analytics
8 186 (12.41%) Verification and Validation
9 168 (11.21%) Data Validation
9 168 (11.21%) Migration
10 161 (10.74%) Business Intelligence
11 157 (10.47%) Data Modelling
12 156 (10.41%) DevOps
13 153 (10.21%) Stakeholder Management
14 148 (9.87%) Software Engineering
15 147 (9.81%) Decision-Making
16 145 (9.67%) Mentoring
17 144 (9.61%) Machine Learning
18 140 (9.34%) Collaborative Working
19 138 (9.21%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 377 (25.15%) Python
2 309 (20.61%) SQL
3 65 (4.34%) C++
4 63 (4.20%) Java
5 61 (4.07%) C
6 49 (3.27%) Go
7 42 (2.80%) C#
8 30 (2.00%) JavaScript
9 26 (1.73%) MATLAB
9 26 (1.73%) PowerShell
10 25 (1.67%) Bash
11 21 (1.40%) T-SQL
12 20 (1.33%) Embedded C
13 18 (1.20%) Embedded C++
14 13 (0.87%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 13 (0.87%) Scala
15 11 (0.73%) TypeScript
16 10 (0.67%) ABAP
17 9 (0.60%) VBA
18 7 (0.47%) R
Qualifications
1 291 (19.41%) Degree
2 170 (11.34%) Security Cleared
3 111 (7.40%) BPSS Clearance
4 79 (5.27%) SC Cleared
5 70 (4.67%) Master's Degree
6 44 (2.94%) DV Cleared
7 41 (2.74%) Computer Science Degree
8 36 (2.40%) Chartered Engineer
9 29 (1.93%) CISA
9 29 (1.93%) CISSP
9 29 (1.93%) SANS
10 27 (1.80%) HNC
11 26 (1.73%) CISM
12 22 (1.47%) HND
13 20 (1.33%) PMI Certification
14 19 (1.27%) ACCA
14 19 (1.27%) CGEIT
14 19 (1.27%) CIMA
14 19 (1.27%) FFIEC
15 17 (1.13%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 239 (15.94%) Data Quality
2 168 (11.21%) QA
3 61 (4.07%) Accessibility
4 58 (3.87%) GDPR
5 41 (2.74%) GRC
6 28 (1.87%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 24 (1.60%) ISO/IEC 15288
8 22 (1.47%) IEC 61508
8 22 (1.47%) NIST
9 19 (1.27%) COBIT
9 19 (1.27%) IFRS
10 16 (1.07%) ISO 9001
11 15 (1.00%) PMO
11 15 (1.00%) SLA
12 13 (0.87%) GAAP
13 11 (0.73%) ISO 26262
13 11 (0.73%) SOC 2
14 10 (0.67%) WCAG
15 9 (0.60%) GMP
15 9 (0.60%) GxP
System Software
1 71 (4.74%) Docker
2 42 (2.80%) Firmware
3 38 (2.54%) 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 72 (4.80%) 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
9 8 (0.53%) SCCM
10 7 (0.47%) Kibana
11 3 (0.20%) FortiGate
11 3 (0.20%) HP Fortify
11 3 (0.20%) Microsoft Intune
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%) PowerCLI
Vendors
1 190 (12.68%) Microsoft
2 93 (6.20%) Oracle
3 92 (6.14%) SAP
4 51 (3.40%) Salesforce
5 38 (2.54%) Databricks
6 34 (2.27%) Red Hat
6 34 (2.27%) ServiceNow
7 33 (2.20%) VMware
8 29 (1.93%) CrowdStrike
9 23 (1.53%) Google
9 23 (1.53%) Palo Alto
10 22 (1.47%) Tenable
11 21 (1.40%) Adobe
11 21 (1.40%) Cisco
12 15 (1.00%) Foundry
13 14 (0.93%) Citrix
13 14 (0.93%) McAfee
14 13 (0.87%) OpenAI
15 10 (0.67%) IBM
15 10 (0.67%) Splunk