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 13 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 140 179 183
Rank change year-on-year +39 +4 -28
Permanent jobs citing Validation 1,120 759 1,369
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.52% 1.74% 1.63%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.95% 1.86% 1.87%
Number of salaries quoted 606 337 794
10th Percentile £36,250 £38,650 £34,750
25th Percentile £44,000 £46,250 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £57,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% +3.64% -12.00%
75th Percentile £77,500 £71,250 £72,433
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £85,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £54,500 £55,000 £52,000
% change year-on-year -0.91% +5.77% -5.45%

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 57,551 40,867 73,360
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 78.05% 93.60% 87.39%
Number of salaries quoted 34,815 22,139 55,867
10th Percentile £29,750 £32,500 £29,000
25th Percentile £39,860 £45,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -11.41%
75th Percentile £76,299 £80,000 £73,750
90th Percentile £97,500 £102,500 £94,006
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% -8.90%

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 13 March 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 13 March 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 +38 968 £60,000 +7.14% 868
UK excluding London +16 685 £54,500 -0.91% 699
London +70 330 £75,000 +5.26% 274
Work from Home +80 318 £60,000 +5.26% 367
South East +46 211 £51,750 -1.43% 221
North of England -1 141 £60,000 +25.83% 141
Midlands -8 118 £37,500 -31.82% 127
North West +13 96 £59,000 +23.73% 70
East of England -7 89 £60,000 +9.09% 86
West Midlands 0 73 £42,215 -35.05% 85
South West -15 67 £55,000 - 94
Scotland -15 43 £42,000 -27.63% 35
East Midlands -26 43 £35,000 -32.69% 42
Yorkshire -43 31 £62,500 +31.58% 48
Wales -6 14 £61,250 +24.74% 12
North East -16 14 £48,500 +6.59% 23
Northern Ireland -29 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 39 (3.48%) Apache Airflow
2 28 (2.50%) Apache Spark
3 24 (2.14%) Apache
4 21 (1.88%) ArcGIS
5 18 (1.61%) Confluence
6 13 (1.16%) Microsoft Exchange
7 12 (1.07%) Appian
8 11 (0.98%) SharePoint
9 10 (0.89%) CMS
10 4 (0.36%) Headless CMS
11 3 (0.27%) Kinematics
12 2 (0.18%) WordPress
13 1 (0.089%) Anypoint
13 1 (0.089%) IIS
13 1 (0.089%) Jupyter
13 1 (0.089%) SAS
Applications
1 93 (8.30%) Microsoft Excel
2 57 (5.09%) Microsoft Office
3 19 (1.70%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 19 (1.70%) MS Visio
4 7 (0.63%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 5 (0.45%) Simulink
5 5 (0.45%) Spreadsheet
6 4 (0.36%) Fusion 360
7 2 (0.18%) Adobe After Effects
7 2 (0.18%) Adobe Captivate
7 2 (0.18%) Adobe Illustrator
7 2 (0.18%) Adobe Premiere
7 2 (0.18%) CANalyzer
7 2 (0.18%) Elementor
7 2 (0.18%) Microsoft Project
7 2 (0.18%) Oracle Smart View
7 2 (0.18%) Photoshop
7 2 (0.18%) Solid Edge
7 2 (0.18%) SOLIDWORKS
7 2 (0.18%) Weka
Business Applications
1 26 (2.32%) SAP S/4HANA
2 13 (1.16%) Dynamics CRM
3 8 (0.71%) Oracle ERP
4 7 (0.63%) Workday HCM
5 5 (0.45%) SAP ERP
6 4 (0.36%) Markit EDM
6 4 (0.36%) SAP BPC
7 3 (0.27%) Elite 3E
7 3 (0.27%) Loan IQ
7 3 (0.27%) SAP CX
8 2 (0.18%) IBM Planning Analytics
8 2 (0.18%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 2 (0.18%) SAP FSCM
8 2 (0.18%) SAP MDG
9 1 (0.089%) Endur
9 1 (0.089%) Magento
9 1 (0.089%) NetSuite
9 1 (0.089%) Remedy ITSM
9 1 (0.089%) SAP Business ByDesign
9 1 (0.089%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 179 (15.98%) Azure
2 110 (9.82%) AWS
3 105 (9.38%) Power Platform
4 58 (5.18%) SaaS
5 43 (3.84%) Azure DevOps
6 38 (3.39%) GCP
7 30 (2.68%) Snowflake
8 29 (2.59%) Dynamics 365
9 28 (2.50%) dbt
10 27 (2.41%) Azure Data Factory
11 26 (2.32%) Amazon S3
12 24 (2.14%) Power Automate
13 21 (1.88%) GitHub
14 19 (1.70%) Entra ID
15 16 (1.43%) Datadog
15 16 (1.43%) Microsoft 365
15 16 (1.43%) OpenShift
16 12 (1.07%) Anthropic Claude
16 12 (1.07%) Azure AI
17 11 (0.98%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 24 (2.14%) CHAP
2 15 (1.34%) TCP/IP
2 15 (1.34%) WAN
3 12 (1.07%) 5G
3 12 (1.07%) SD-WAN
4 11 (0.98%) Firewall
5 10 (0.89%) Broadband
6 9 (0.80%) HTTP
6 9 (0.80%) Wireless
7 8 (0.71%) DNS
7 8 (0.71%) MQTT
7 8 (0.71%) Multicast
8 7 (0.63%) Modbus
9 6 (0.54%) ATM
9 6 (0.54%) LAN
9 6 (0.54%) tcpdump
9 6 (0.54%) Wireshark
10 5 (0.45%) Cisco IOS
10 5 (0.45%) NAS
10 5 (0.45%) WAAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 98 (8.75%) Power BI
2 44 (3.93%) SQL Server
3 38 (3.39%) Tableau
4 33 (2.95%) Data Warehouse
5 30 (2.68%) Metadata
6 28 (2.50%) GIS
6 28 (2.50%) Relational Database
7 20 (1.79%) QGIS
7 20 (1.79%) Spatial Data
8 19 (1.70%) PostgreSQL
9 16 (1.43%) Oracle Reports
10 14 (1.25%) Azure SQL Database
10 14 (1.25%) Parquet
10 14 (1.25%) Spark SQL
11 13 (1.16%) Apache Hive
11 13 (1.16%) Impala
11 13 (1.16%) MySQL
11 13 (1.16%) Oracle Database
12 12 (1.07%) Pinecone
13 11 (0.98%) Data Lake
Development Applications
1 64 (5.71%) Git
2 62 (5.54%) JIRA
3 43 (3.84%) Rational DOORS
4 21 (1.88%) Jenkins
5 18 (1.61%) Postman
6 17 (1.52%) Cucumber
7 16 (1.43%) JMeter
7 16 (1.43%) LabVIEW
8 15 (1.34%) GitLab
9 14 (1.25%) MLflow
10 13 (1.16%) IBM UrbanCode
10 13 (1.16%) TestRail
11 11 (0.98%) Eclipse
11 11 (0.98%) Locust
12 10 (0.89%) Selenium
13 7 (0.63%) LoadRunner
13 7 (0.63%) SoapUI
14 6 (0.54%) Subversion
15 5 (0.45%) SpecFlow
15 5 (0.45%) Visual Studio
General
1 416 (37.14%) Social Skills
2 311 (27.77%) Finance
3 265 (23.66%) Analytical Skills
4 92 (8.21%) Banking
5 65 (5.80%) Manufacturing
6 54 (4.82%) Electronics
7 51 (4.55%) Aerospace
8 49 (4.38%) Financial Institution
9 48 (4.29%) Legal
10 45 (4.02%) Marketing
11 42 (3.75%) Presentation Skills
12 39 (3.48%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 38 (3.39%) Public Sector
14 36 (3.21%) Law
15 35 (3.13%) Retail
16 32 (2.86%) Organisational Skills
17 26 (2.32%) Telecoms
18 21 (1.88%) Pharmaceutical
19 20 (1.79%) Documentation Skills
20 19 (1.70%) Aviation
Job Titles
1 188 (16.79%) Analyst
2 168 (15.00%) Senior
3 126 (11.25%) Systems Engineer
4 86 (7.68%) Lead
5 70 (6.25%) Business Analyst
6 61 (5.45%) Architect
7 59 (5.27%) Validation Engineer
8 54 (4.82%) Test Engineer
9 53 (4.73%) Consultant
10 52 (4.64%) Integration Engineer
11 47 (4.20%) Data Analyst
12 41 (3.66%) Junior
12 41 (3.66%) Senior Systems Engineer
13 37 (3.30%) Developer
14 36 (3.21%) Systems Integration Engineer
15 35 (3.13%) Data Engineer
15 35 (3.13%) Principal Engineer
16 29 (2.59%) Verification Engineer
17 28 (2.50%) Software Validation Engineer
18 27 (2.41%) Principal Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 54 (4.82%) REST
2 39 (3.48%) PyTorch
3 38 (3.39%) Pandas
4 32 (2.86%) JSON
5 30 (2.68%) Middleware
6 24 (2.14%) pytest
7 23 (2.05%) XML
8 19 (1.70%) OAuth
9 18 (1.61%) JWT
9 18 (1.61%) NumPy
9 18 (1.61%) PySpark
9 18 (1.61%) Swagger
9 18 (1.61%) TensorFlow
10 16 (1.43%) .NET
10 16 (1.43%) Web Services
11 15 (1.34%) React
11 15 (1.34%) RESTful
11 15 (1.34%) scikit-learn
12 14 (1.25%) Kafka
12 14 (1.25%) OpenAPI
Miscellaneous
1 74 (6.61%) Management Information System
2 55 (4.91%) Onboarding
3 43 (3.84%) Data Structures
4 34 (3.04%) Product Ownership
5 30 (2.68%) Algorithms
5 30 (2.68%) Legacy Systems
5 30 (2.68%) Self-Motivation
6 28 (2.50%) Low-Code
7 25 (2.23%) Life Science
8 20 (1.79%) Analytical Mindset
9 17 (1.52%) Enterprise Software
10 15 (1.34%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 14 (1.25%) Blockchain
11 14 (1.25%) Embedded Systems
11 14 (1.25%) FPGA
12 13 (1.16%) Reinsurance
12 13 (1.16%) SCADA
12 13 (1.16%) SWIFT Messaging Network
13 12 (1.07%) Cloud Native
13 12 (1.07%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 53 (4.73%) Linux
2 51 (4.55%) Windows
3 17 (1.52%) Unix
4 12 (1.07%) Android
5 10 (0.89%) Windows Server
6 9 (0.80%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 4 (0.36%) Apple iOS
7 4 (0.36%) CentOS
8 3 (0.27%) Robot Operating System
9 2 (0.18%) AIX
9 2 (0.18%) Mac OS
9 2 (0.18%) VxWorks
10 1 (0.089%) Embedded Linux
10 1 (0.089%) FreeRTOS
10 1 (0.089%) Rocky
10 1 (0.089%) ThreadX
10 1 (0.089%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.089%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 301 (26.88%) Agile
2 259 (23.13%) Problem-Solving
3 202 (18.04%) Continuous Improvement
4 177 (15.80%) Verification and Validation
5 171 (15.27%) Analytics
6 150 (13.39%) Data Validation
7 138 (12.32%) Test Automation
8 137 (12.23%) AI
9 135 (12.05%) CI/CD
10 133 (11.88%) Migration
11 126 (11.25%) Systems Engineering
12 124 (11.07%) Business Intelligence
13 122 (10.89%) DevOps
14 119 (10.63%) Stakeholder Management
15 115 (10.27%) User Acceptance Testing
16 111 (9.91%) ETL
17 110 (9.82%) Mentoring
18 109 (9.73%) Decision-Making
19 106 (9.46%) Data Modelling
20 102 (9.11%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 244 (21.79%) Python
2 242 (21.61%) SQL
3 47 (4.20%) Java
4 40 (3.57%) PowerShell
5 36 (3.21%) C++
6 35 (3.13%) C
7 27 (2.41%) JavaScript
8 22 (1.96%) Bash
9 18 (1.61%) T-SQL
10 16 (1.43%) MATLAB
11 15 (1.34%) C#
12 14 (1.25%) TypeScript
13 12 (1.07%) R
14 11 (0.98%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 9 (0.80%) Go
15 9 (0.80%) VBA
16 7 (0.63%) Apex Code
16 7 (0.63%) VB
17 6 (0.54%) PHP
18 5 (0.45%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 259 (23.13%) Degree
2 145 (12.95%) Security Cleared
3 127 (11.34%) BPSS Clearance
4 58 (5.18%) SC Cleared
5 52 (4.64%) Master's Degree
6 41 (3.66%) Computer Science Degree
7 28 (2.50%) CISA
7 28 (2.50%) CISSP
8 27 (2.41%) CISM
9 24 (2.14%) CGEIT
9 24 (2.14%) FFIEC
9 24 (2.14%) SANS
10 23 (2.05%) DV Cleared
10 23 (2.05%) PMI Certification
10 23 (2.05%) PMP
11 22 (1.96%) Chartered Engineer
12 19 (1.70%) HNC
13 17 (1.52%) ISTQB
14 15 (1.34%) HND
15 9 (0.80%) CIMA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 143 (12.77%) Data Quality
2 132 (11.79%) QA
3 60 (5.36%) Accessibility
3 60 (5.36%) GDPR
4 43 (3.84%) ISO/IEC 15288
5 25 (2.23%) NIST
6 24 (2.14%) COBIT
7 19 (1.70%) SLA
8 18 (1.61%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 16 (1.43%) WCAG
10 15 (1.34%) GRC
10 15 (1.34%) IFRS
11 14 (1.25%) ISO 20022
12 11 (0.98%) ISO/IEC 12207
13 10 (0.89%) 21 CFR Part 11
13 10 (0.89%) Good Clinical Practice
13 10 (0.89%) ISO 9001
13 10 (0.89%) SEPA
14 9 (0.80%) GAAP
14 9 (0.80%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 70 (6.25%) Docker
2 28 (2.50%) Firmware
3 19 (1.70%) Active Directory
4 15 (1.34%) VMware Infrastructure
5 6 (0.54%) Embedded Firmware
5 6 (0.54%) Hyper-V
5 6 (0.54%) KVM
6 4 (0.36%) VMware ESXi
6 4 (0.36%) vSphere
7 2 (0.18%) Ceph
7 2 (0.18%) Lustre
7 2 (0.18%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 1 (0.089%) iptables
8 1 (0.089%) OpenAM
8 1 (0.089%) OpenDJ
8 1 (0.089%) OpenIDM
8 1 (0.089%) pfSense
8 1 (0.089%) Terminal Services
8 1 (0.089%) vCloud
8 1 (0.089%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 64 (5.71%) Kubernetes
2 43 (3.84%) Terraform
3 27 (2.41%) Grafana
4 24 (2.14%) Ansible
5 13 (1.16%) Prometheus
6 11 (0.98%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
7 10 (0.89%) SCCM
8 8 (0.71%) Puppet
9 7 (0.63%) Microsoft Intune
10 5 (0.45%) Argo
10 5 (0.45%) Rancher
10 5 (0.45%) yum
11 2 (0.18%) BMC PATROL
11 2 (0.18%) Nessus
11 2 (0.18%) PowerCLI
12 1 (0.089%) Control-M
12 1 (0.089%) Docker Swarm
12 1 (0.089%) FortiGate
12 1 (0.089%) Kibana
12 1 (0.089%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 145 (12.95%) Microsoft
2 61 (5.45%) SAP
3 59 (5.27%) Oracle
4 44 (3.93%) Salesforce
5 23 (2.05%) IBM
6 19 (1.70%) Cisco
7 18 (1.61%) Foundry
7 18 (1.61%) VMware
8 17 (1.52%) OpenAI
8 17 (1.52%) Red Hat
9 14 (1.25%) Adobe
9 14 (1.25%) ServiceNow
9 14 (1.25%) Software AG
10 13 (1.16%) Databricks
10 13 (1.16%) Workday
11 12 (1.07%) Automation Anywhere
11 12 (1.07%) UiPath
12 11 (0.98%) Google
13 9 (0.80%) Intapp
13 9 (0.80%) Siemens