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 10 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 68 98 173
Rank change year-on-year +30 +75 +24
Permanent jobs citing Validation 2,648 1,563 1,109
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 2.24% 3.16% 1.53%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.06% 3.55% 1.86%
Number of salaries quoted 1,546 433 412
10th Percentile £36,250 £38,710 £38,734
25th Percentile £42,750 £41,250 £47,375
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £59,000 £55,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year +7.27% -4.35% -11.54%
75th Percentile £71,250 £76,250 £77,500
90th Percentile £86,250 £88,500 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £52,600 £54,500
% change year-on-year +4.56% -3.49% -5.22%

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 86,418 43,977 59,769
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.19% 88.96% 82.26%
Number of salaries quoted 59,113 24,503 32,039
10th Percentile £31,250 £28,250 £32,500
25th Percentile £41,250 £36,250 £43,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -8.33% -
75th Percentile £78,750 £75,000 £77,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £95,000 £97,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £47,500 £52,500
% change year-on-year +15.79% -9.52% -2.78%

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 10 October 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 10 October 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 +23 2,431 £57,500 +4.55% 4,370
UK excluding London -2 1,918 £55,000 +4.56% 2,618
Work from Home +130 692 £60,000 -4.00% 1,531
London +81 628 £68,750 -14.06% 2,023
South East -13 504 £63,500 +15.45% 634
North of England +130 497 £51,000 +6.96% 430
Midlands -14 316 £50,000 -9.09% 393
North West +116 306 £55,000 +9.94% 224
South West +25 245 £55,000 +4.76% 315
East of England -40 217 £55,000 -10.20% 367
West Midlands +45 173 £47,500 -13.64% 254
East Midlands -37 143 £50,000 +17.65% 139
Yorkshire +34 99 £42,500 - 143
Scotland +46 96 £70,000 +16.67% 360
North East +1 92 £55,000 +57.14% 64
Wales -40 46 £60,000 -4.00% 63
Isle of Man - 5 £38,500 - 4
Northern Ireland -76 4 - - 87

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 55 (2.08%) Apache Spark
2 48 (1.81%) Apache Airflow
3 47 (1.77%) Apache
4 37 (1.40%) SharePoint
5 36 (1.36%) Confluence
6 32 (1.21%) CMS
7 21 (0.79%) Jupyter
7 21 (0.79%) Microsoft Exchange
8 13 (0.49%) SAS
9 10 (0.38%) WinCC
10 6 (0.23%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 6 (0.23%) Palantir Foundry
11 4 (0.15%) Artix
12 3 (0.11%) nginx
12 3 (0.11%) OpenStack
12 3 (0.11%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 2 (0.076%) Cloud Foundry
13 2 (0.076%) IIS
14 1 (0.038%) Oracle Workflow
14 1 (0.038%) WebSphere
Applications
1 161 (6.08%) Microsoft Excel
2 72 (2.72%) Microsoft Office
3 57 (2.15%) Simulink
4 38 (1.44%) Microsoft Project
5 31 (1.17%) Spreadsheet
6 22 (0.83%) AutoCAD
7 19 (0.72%) SOLIDWORKS
8 15 (0.57%) MS Visio
8 15 (0.57%) Revit
9 13 (0.49%) Microsoft PowerPoint
10 12 (0.45%) OrCAD
11 11 (0.42%) EPLAN
12 10 (0.38%) Navisworks
13 9 (0.34%) Notion
14 6 (0.23%) Mathcad
15 5 (0.19%) LaTeX
15 5 (0.19%) Stateflow
16 4 (0.15%) CANalyzer
16 4 (0.15%) Chatbot
17 3 (0.11%) Productboard
Business Applications
1 43 (1.62%) SAP S/4HANA
2 40 (1.51%) Dynamics CRM
3 10 (0.38%) Workday HCM
4 9 (0.34%) SAP MDG
5 8 (0.30%) Elite 3E
5 8 (0.30%) iTrent
5 8 (0.30%) NetSuite
6 7 (0.26%) Infor M3
6 7 (0.26%) Oracle EBS
6 7 (0.26%) Teamcenter
7 6 (0.23%) Oracle Applications
7 6 (0.23%) SAP ERP
8 5 (0.19%) Maximo
8 5 (0.19%) Oracle Financials
9 4 (0.15%) Salesforce CRM
9 4 (0.15%) SAP MM
10 3 (0.11%) Dynamics NAV
10 3 (0.11%) Sage 200
10 3 (0.11%) SAP MDG-BP
10 3 (0.11%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 362 (13.67%) Azure
2 286 (10.80%) AWS
3 196 (7.40%) Power Platform
4 107 (4.04%) GCP
5 89 (3.36%) Azure DevOps
5 89 (3.36%) GitHub
6 81 (3.06%) SaaS
7 71 (2.68%) Microsoft 365
8 65 (2.45%) Serverless
9 51 (1.93%) Entra ID
10 50 (1.89%) Amazon S3
11 43 (1.62%) GitHub Actions
12 36 (1.36%) Dynamics 365
13 35 (1.32%) Microsoft Copilot
14 32 (1.21%) Microsoft Purview
15 30 (1.13%) Amazon EMR
16 29 (1.10%) Azure Data Factory
17 28 (1.06%) Cloud Computing
18 27 (1.02%) AWS Lambda
18 27 (1.02%) Azure Service Bus
Communications & Networking
1 74 (2.79%) DNS
1 74 (2.79%) Firewall
2 57 (2.15%) Broadband
3 49 (1.85%) TCP/IP
4 48 (1.81%) VPN
5 46 (1.74%) Wireless
6 41 (1.55%) Ethernet
7 40 (1.51%) Modbus
8 39 (1.47%) VLAN
9 38 (1.44%) WAN
10 37 (1.40%) Network Security
11 32 (1.21%) OSPF
12 31 (1.17%) LAN
13 28 (1.06%) MQTT
14 26 (0.98%) Wireshark
15 24 (0.91%) SD-WAN
16 23 (0.87%) BGP
17 21 (0.79%) DHCP
18 19 (0.72%) 5G
19 18 (0.68%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 180 (6.80%) Power BI
2 79 (2.98%) Metadata
3 68 (2.57%) Data Warehouse
4 58 (2.19%) SQL Server
5 55 (2.08%) Data Lake
6 47 (1.77%) PostgreSQL
7 42 (1.59%) Amazon Athena
8 39 (1.47%) Tableau
9 37 (1.40%) Relational Database
10 31 (1.17%) MongoDB
11 28 (1.06%) Big Data
11 28 (1.06%) BigQuery
11 28 (1.06%) NoSQL
12 25 (0.94%) Power Query
13 23 (0.87%) Amazon Redshift
13 23 (0.87%) DynamoDB
14 22 (0.83%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 21 (0.79%) Azure SQL Database
16 19 (0.72%) MySQL
16 19 (0.72%) Semantic Layer
Development Applications
1 143 (5.40%) JIRA
2 135 (5.10%) Git
3 68 (2.57%) GitLab
4 67 (2.53%) Jenkins
5 50 (1.89%) Rational DOORS
6 34 (1.28%) LabVIEW
7 27 (1.02%) Selenium
8 23 (0.87%) Postman
9 20 (0.76%) Cypress.io
10 16 (0.60%) Snyk
11 14 (0.53%) Claude Code
12 13 (0.49%) Burp Suite
13 12 (0.45%) Eclipse
13 12 (0.45%) JMeter
14 11 (0.42%) Rational Rhapsody
14 11 (0.42%) REST Assured
14 11 (0.42%) Sonatype Nexus
15 9 (0.34%) Cucumber
15 9 (0.34%) MLflow
15 9 (0.34%) Zephyr
General
1 900 (33.99%) Social Skills
2 683 (25.79%) Finance
3 626 (23.64%) Analytical Skills
4 267 (10.08%) Manufacturing
5 260 (9.82%) Electronics
6 259 (9.78%) Aerospace
7 250 (9.44%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 144 (5.44%) Law
9 124 (4.68%) Marketing
10 121 (4.57%) Public Sector
11 119 (4.49%) Organisational Skills
12 114 (4.31%) Banking
13 103 (3.89%) Retail
14 101 (3.81%) Telecoms
15 86 (3.25%) Pharmaceutical
16 84 (3.17%) Automotive
17 61 (2.30%) Legal
18 51 (1.93%) Documentation Skills
19 49 (1.85%) Military
20 43 (1.62%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 469 (17.71%) Senior
2 309 (11.67%) Systems Engineer
3 270 (10.20%) Analyst
4 222 (8.38%) Lead
5 139 (5.25%) Data Engineer
6 130 (4.91%) Test Engineer
7 120 (4.53%) Architect
8 109 (4.12%) Developer
9 104 (3.93%) Consultant
10 96 (3.63%) Software Engineer
11 89 (3.36%) Electronics Engineer
12 87 (3.29%) Principal Engineer
13 79 (2.98%) Business Analyst
14 66 (2.49%) Data Analyst
15 63 (2.38%) Design Engineer
16 60 (2.27%) Network Engineer
17 59 (2.23%) Validation Engineer
18 58 (2.19%) Automation Engineer
19 50 (1.89%) Data Scientist
20 48 (1.81%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 94 (3.55%) Terraform
2 69 (2.61%) REST
3 63 (2.38%) Kafka
4 62 (2.34%) RESTful
5 57 (2.15%) .NET
6 55 (2.08%) Node.js
7 45 (1.70%) PySpark
8 43 (1.62%) Playwright
9 39 (1.47%) JSON
10 37 (1.40%) FastAPI
11 36 (1.36%) XML
12 33 (1.25%) CSS
12 33 (1.25%) React
13 32 (1.21%) HTML
14 28 (1.06%) Swagger
15 25 (0.94%) Middleware
15 25 (0.94%) RabbitMQ
16 24 (0.91%) OpenAPI
17 23 (0.87%) LDAP
18 22 (0.83%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 175 (6.61%) Cloud Native
2 162 (6.12%) Onboarding
3 160 (6.04%) Management Information System
4 86 (3.25%) Product Ownership
5 78 (2.95%) Driving Licence
6 76 (2.87%) Data Centre
7 74 (2.79%) Embedded Systems
8 70 (2.64%) Distributed Systems
9 66 (2.49%) Data Structures
10 64 (2.42%) Enterprise Software
11 61 (2.30%) AI Agents
12 58 (2.19%) SCADA
13 54 (2.04%) Algorithms
14 48 (1.81%) Life Science
15 42 (1.59%) Robotics
16 41 (1.55%) IoT
16 41 (1.55%) Legacy Systems
17 40 (1.51%) Analogue Electronics
18 38 (1.44%) Analytical Mindset
18 38 (1.44%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 138 (5.21%) Linux
2 97 (3.66%) Windows
3 35 (1.32%) Windows Server
4 27 (1.02%) Unix
5 14 (0.53%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 10 (0.38%) Android
7 9 (0.34%) Mac OS
8 8 (0.30%) Embedded Linux
9 4 (0.15%) FreeRTOS
9 4 (0.15%) Kali Linux
10 3 (0.11%) Apple iOS
10 3 (0.11%) Windows 10
11 2 (0.076%) Robot Operating System
11 2 (0.076%) VMS
12 1 (0.038%) AIX
12 1 (0.038%) CentOS
12 1 (0.038%) OpenWrt
12 1 (0.038%) ThreadX
12 1 (0.038%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 685 (25.87%) Problem-Solving
2 607 (22.92%) Continuous Improvement
3 485 (18.32%) Agile
4 480 (18.13%) AI
5 475 (17.94%) Verification and Validation
6 372 (14.05%) CI/CD
7 350 (13.22%) Stakeholder Management
8 345 (13.03%) Test Automation
9 325 (12.27%) Migration
10 288 (10.88%) Analytics
11 285 (10.76%) Mentoring
12 265 (10.01%) Software Engineering
13 258 (9.74%) Decision-Making
14 253 (9.55%) DevOps
15 229 (8.65%) Data Analysis
16 225 (8.50%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 219 (8.27%) Business Intelligence
18 209 (7.89%) Roadmaps
19 206 (7.78%) Machine Learning
20 200 (7.55%) Data Migration
Programming Languages
1 561 (21.19%) Python
2 467 (17.64%) SQL
3 112 (4.23%) Java
4 99 (3.74%) C++
5 95 (3.59%) C
6 85 (3.21%) C#
7 78 (2.95%) JavaScript
8 72 (2.72%) MATLAB
9 47 (1.77%) Go
10 41 (1.55%) PowerShell
11 39 (1.47%) Bash
12 35 (1.32%) TypeScript
13 30 (1.13%) Embedded C
13 30 (1.13%) R
14 25 (0.94%) Scala
15 24 (0.91%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 18 (0.68%) Embedded C++
17 13 (0.49%) Shell Script
18 12 (0.45%) T-SQL
19 11 (0.42%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 583 (22.02%) Degree
2 575 (21.71%) Security Cleared
3 430 (16.24%) SC Cleared
4 123 (4.65%) BPSS Clearance
5 108 (4.08%) DV Cleared
6 105 (3.97%) Master's Degree
7 53 (2.00%) Computer Science Degree
8 51 (1.93%) PhD
9 45 (1.70%) HND
10 41 (1.55%) Chartered Engineer
11 37 (1.40%) HNC
12 34 (1.28%) PMI Certification
13 33 (1.25%) Azure Certification
14 31 (1.17%) CISSP
15 30 (1.13%) ACCA
15 30 (1.13%) AWS Certification
16 27 (1.02%) CIMA
17 26 (0.98%) PMP
18 23 (0.87%) Cisco Certification
19 21 (0.79%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 399 (15.07%) Data Quality
2 317 (11.97%) QA
3 93 (3.51%) Accessibility
4 68 (2.57%) GDPR
5 35 (1.32%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 30 (1.13%) GRC
7 29 (1.10%) GxP
8 28 (1.06%) SLA
9 22 (0.83%) NIST
10 18 (0.68%) IEC 61508
10 18 (0.68%) ISO 9001
10 18 (0.68%) ISO/IEC 15288
11 17 (0.64%) GMP
12 16 (0.60%) ISO 19650
13 13 (0.49%) SOC 2
14 12 (0.45%) WCAG
15 11 (0.42%) PMO
16 10 (0.38%) ISO 26262
17 9 (0.34%) Cyber Essentials
17 9 (0.34%) JTAG
System Software
1 117 (4.42%) Docker
2 105 (3.97%) Firmware
3 53 (2.00%) Active Directory
4 46 (1.74%) Embedded Firmware
5 21 (0.79%) Virtual Machines
6 15 (0.57%) vSphere
7 9 (0.34%) VMware Infrastructure
8 6 (0.23%) Hyper-V
9 3 (0.11%) KVM
9 3 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
9 3 (0.11%) VMware ESXi
10 2 (0.076%) iptables
10 2 (0.076%) ProxySG
11 1 (0.038%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.038%) LXC
Systems Management
1 97 (3.66%) Kubernetes
2 49 (1.85%) Grafana
3 40 (1.51%) Ansible
4 29 (1.10%) Functional Safety
5 18 (0.68%) Prometheus
5 18 (0.68%) Single Sign-On
6 16 (0.60%) Microsoft Intune
7 13 (0.49%) Puppet
8 9 (0.34%) BMC PATROL
9 8 (0.30%) Cilium
9 8 (0.30%) Kibana
9 8 (0.30%) Nessus
9 8 (0.30%) Nmap
10 6 (0.23%) Argo
11 5 (0.19%) Autotask
11 5 (0.19%) Rancher
11 5 (0.19%) SCCM
11 5 (0.19%) WMI
11 5 (0.19%) yum
12 4 (0.15%) FortiGate
Vendors
1 363 (13.71%) Microsoft
2 129 (4.87%) SAP
3 101 (3.81%) Salesforce
4 100 (3.78%) Oracle
5 77 (2.91%) EMC
6 71 (2.68%) Databricks
7 57 (2.15%) Cisco
8 56 (2.11%) ServiceNow
9 46 (1.74%) Google
10 39 (1.47%) Adobe
11 31 (1.17%) Thales
12 30 (1.13%) Samsung
13 28 (1.06%) TikTok
14 26 (0.98%) CrowdStrike
15 25 (0.94%) IBM
15 25 (0.94%) Sage
16 23 (0.87%) Siemens
17 22 (0.83%) Informatica
17 22 (0.83%) VMware
18 21 (0.79%) Palo Alto