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

6 months to
30 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 136 173 187
Rank change year-on-year +37 +14 -31
Permanent jobs citing Validation 1,188 756 1,425
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.52% 1.84% 1.59%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.97% 1.97% 1.84%
Number of salaries quoted 662 373 787
10th Percentile £35,000 £40,000 £35,000
25th Percentile £43,563 £46,000 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £56,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +7.14% +1.82% -8.33%
75th Percentile £77,500 £71,250 £72,433
90th Percentile £95,000 £96,000 £85,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,750 £52,600 £52,500
% change year-on-year +0.29% +0.19% -1.70%

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 60,236 38,342 77,370
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 76.83% 93.07% 86.53%
Number of salaries quoted 37,103 22,499 57,686
10th Percentile £30,000 £31,250 £29,250
25th Percentile £40,000 £43,750 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -10.57%
75th Percentile £77,500 £80,000 £73,750
90th Percentile £97,500 £102,500 £92,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% -8.26%

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 30 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 30 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 +29 1,031 £60,000 +7.14% 872
UK excluding London +7 752 £52,750 +0.29% 714
Work from Home +86 341 £57,500 +2.68% 341
London +65 327 £75,000 +7.14% 268
South East +34 245 £55,000 +10.00% 215
North of England +11 163 £58,000 +22.11% 152
Midlands -17 123 £37,500 -31.82% 118
North West +9 103 £58,000 +21.87% 74
East of England -10 91 £58,750 +6.82% 96
West Midlands -5 75 £43,108 -34.93% 77
South West -42 68 £57,500 +4.55% 89
Scotland -21 46 £42,000 -27.63% 42
East Midlands -35 46 £35,000 -31.37% 41
Yorkshire -32 40 £60,000 +26.32% 51
North East -2 20 £48,500 -14.54% 27
Wales -20 15 £55,000 +12.01% 16
Northern Ireland -36 3 - - 5

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 41 (3.45%) Apache Airflow
2 27 (2.27%) Apache Spark
3 23 (1.94%) Apache
4 20 (1.68%) ArcGIS
5 18 (1.52%) Confluence
6 13 (1.09%) Microsoft Exchange
7 12 (1.01%) Appian
7 12 (1.01%) CMS
8 9 (0.76%) SharePoint
9 5 (0.42%) Kinematics
10 4 (0.34%) Headless CMS
11 2 (0.17%) WordPress
12 1 (0.084%) Anypoint
12 1 (0.084%) IIS
12 1 (0.084%) Jupyter
12 1 (0.084%) SAS
Applications
1 91 (7.66%) Microsoft Excel
2 60 (5.05%) Microsoft Office
3 18 (1.52%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 18 (1.52%) MS Visio
4 7 (0.59%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 5 (0.42%) Simulink
5 5 (0.42%) Spreadsheet
6 4 (0.34%) CANalyzer
6 4 (0.34%) Fusion 360
6 4 (0.34%) Microsoft Project
7 2 (0.17%) Adobe After Effects
7 2 (0.17%) Adobe Captivate
7 2 (0.17%) Adobe Illustrator
7 2 (0.17%) Adobe Premiere
7 2 (0.17%) Elementor
7 2 (0.17%) Oracle Smart View
7 2 (0.17%) Photoshop
7 2 (0.17%) Solid Edge
7 2 (0.17%) SOLIDWORKS
7 2 (0.17%) Weka
Business Applications
1 24 (2.02%) SAP S/4HANA
2 13 (1.09%) Dynamics CRM
3 8 (0.67%) Oracle ERP
4 7 (0.59%) Workday HCM
5 5 (0.42%) Loan IQ
5 5 (0.42%) SAP ERP
6 4 (0.34%) Elite 3E
6 4 (0.34%) Markit EDM
6 4 (0.34%) SAP BPC
7 2 (0.17%) IBM Planning Analytics
7 2 (0.17%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 2 (0.17%) SAP CX
7 2 (0.17%) SAP FSCM
7 2 (0.17%) SAP MDG
8 1 (0.084%) Endur
8 1 (0.084%) Oracle Financials
8 1 (0.084%) Primavera
8 1 (0.084%) Raiser’s Edge
8 1 (0.084%) Salesforce CRM
8 1 (0.084%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 186 (15.66%) Azure
2 117 (9.85%) AWS
3 109 (9.18%) Power Platform
4 60 (5.05%) SaaS
5 41 (3.45%) Azure DevOps
5 41 (3.45%) GCP
6 30 (2.53%) dbt
7 29 (2.44%) Snowflake
8 28 (2.36%) Azure Data Factory
9 27 (2.27%) Dynamics 365
10 25 (2.10%) Amazon S3
11 24 (2.02%) Power Automate
12 22 (1.85%) GitHub
13 21 (1.77%) Entra ID
14 18 (1.52%) Datadog
14 18 (1.52%) Microsoft 365
15 16 (1.35%) OpenShift
16 15 (1.26%) Azure AI
17 13 (1.09%) Anthropic Claude
18 12 (1.01%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 25 (2.10%) CHAP
2 21 (1.77%) Broadband
3 16 (1.35%) WAN
4 15 (1.26%) Firewall
4 15 (1.26%) TCP/IP
5 13 (1.09%) DNS
5 13 (1.09%) SD-WAN
6 12 (1.01%) 5G
6 12 (1.01%) Wireless
7 9 (0.76%) HTTP
8 8 (0.67%) Multicast
9 7 (0.59%) Modbus
9 7 (0.59%) MQTT
9 7 (0.59%) Wireshark
10 6 (0.51%) ATM
10 6 (0.51%) LAN
10 6 (0.51%) NAS
10 6 (0.51%) tcpdump
11 5 (0.42%) Cisco IOS
11 5 (0.42%) WAAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 103 (8.67%) Power BI
2 44 (3.70%) Tableau
3 42 (3.54%) SQL Server
4 33 (2.78%) Data Warehouse
5 30 (2.53%) Metadata
6 28 (2.36%) Relational Database
7 25 (2.10%) GIS
7 25 (2.10%) PostgreSQL
8 20 (1.68%) QGIS
8 20 (1.68%) Spatial Data
9 16 (1.35%) Oracle Reports
10 14 (1.18%) Parquet
10 14 (1.18%) Spark SQL
11 13 (1.09%) Apache Hive
11 13 (1.09%) Impala
11 13 (1.09%) MySQL
11 13 (1.09%) Oracle Database
12 12 (1.01%) Azure SQL Database
12 12 (1.01%) Pinecone
12 12 (1.01%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 67 (5.64%) Git
2 61 (5.13%) JIRA
3 40 (3.37%) Rational DOORS
4 22 (1.85%) Jenkins
5 18 (1.52%) Cucumber
5 18 (1.52%) Postman
6 17 (1.43%) JMeter
7 16 (1.35%) LabVIEW
8 15 (1.26%) GitLab
9 14 (1.18%) MLflow
10 13 (1.09%) IBM UrbanCode
10 13 (1.09%) Selenium
10 13 (1.09%) TestRail
11 12 (1.01%) Locust
12 11 (0.93%) Eclipse
13 7 (0.59%) LoadRunner
13 7 (0.59%) SoapUI
14 6 (0.51%) Subversion
15 5 (0.42%) Robot Framework
15 5 (0.42%) Visual Studio
General
1 430 (36.20%) Social Skills
2 311 (26.18%) Finance
3 269 (22.64%) Analytical Skills
4 83 (6.99%) Banking
5 76 (6.40%) Manufacturing
6 67 (5.64%) Aerospace
6 67 (5.64%) Electronics
7 56 (4.71%) Legal
8 45 (3.79%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 44 (3.70%) Marketing
10 42 (3.54%) Law
11 41 (3.45%) Financial Institution
11 41 (3.45%) Presentation Skills
11 41 (3.45%) Public Sector
12 40 (3.37%) Retail
13 30 (2.53%) Organisational Skills
14 26 (2.19%) Pharmaceutical
15 24 (2.02%) Telecoms
16 22 (1.85%) Automotive
16 22 (1.85%) Aviation
Job Titles
1 200 (16.84%) Analyst
2 184 (15.49%) Senior
3 137 (11.53%) Systems Engineer
4 95 (8.00%) Lead
5 71 (5.98%) Business Analyst
6 68 (5.72%) Validation Engineer
7 62 (5.22%) Test Engineer
8 57 (4.80%) Architect
9 56 (4.71%) Consultant
10 55 (4.63%) Integration Engineer
11 51 (4.29%) Data Analyst
12 45 (3.79%) Developer
13 42 (3.54%) Senior Systems Engineer
14 40 (3.37%) Junior
15 39 (3.28%) Systems Integration Engineer
16 38 (3.20%) Principal Engineer
17 35 (2.95%) Data Engineer
18 33 (2.78%) Software Validation Engineer
18 33 (2.78%) Verification Engineer
19 28 (2.36%) Principal Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 57 (4.80%) REST
2 39 (3.28%) PyTorch
3 37 (3.11%) Pandas
4 36 (3.03%) JSON
5 26 (2.19%) Middleware
5 26 (2.19%) pytest
6 25 (2.10%) XML
7 19 (1.60%) OAuth
8 18 (1.52%) JWT
8 18 (1.52%) NumPy
8 18 (1.52%) PySpark
8 18 (1.52%) Swagger
8 18 (1.52%) TensorFlow
9 16 (1.35%) .NET
9 16 (1.35%) RESTful
10 15 (1.26%) Kafka
10 15 (1.26%) React
10 15 (1.26%) scikit-learn
10 15 (1.26%) Web Services
11 14 (1.18%) CSS
Miscellaneous
1 75 (6.31%) Management Information System
2 56 (4.71%) Onboarding
3 47 (3.96%) Data Structures
4 38 (3.20%) Product Ownership
5 36 (3.03%) Low-Code
6 33 (2.78%) Algorithms
7 32 (2.69%) Legacy Systems
8 28 (2.36%) Self-Motivation
9 25 (2.10%) Life Science
10 23 (1.94%) Analytical Mindset
11 19 (1.60%) Enterprise Software
12 17 (1.43%) Cloud Native
12 17 (1.43%) Embedded Systems
13 16 (1.35%) Robotics
14 14 (1.18%) Blockchain
14 14 (1.18%) SCADA
15 13 (1.09%) Reinsurance
16 12 (1.01%) FPGA
16 12 (1.01%) IoT
17 11 (0.93%) Data Centre
Operating Systems
1 63 (5.30%) Linux
2 56 (4.71%) Windows
3 17 (1.43%) Unix
4 15 (1.26%) Windows Server
5 14 (1.18%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 12 (1.01%) Android
7 4 (0.34%) Apple iOS
7 4 (0.34%) CentOS
8 3 (0.25%) Robot Operating System
9 2 (0.17%) AIX
9 2 (0.17%) Mac OS
9 2 (0.17%) VxWorks
10 1 (0.084%) Embedded Linux
10 1 (0.084%) FreeRTOS
10 1 (0.084%) Kali Linux
10 1 (0.084%) Rocky
10 1 (0.084%) ThreadX
10 1 (0.084%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.084%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 290 (24.41%) Agile
2 264 (22.22%) Problem-Solving
3 228 (19.19%) Continuous Improvement
4 192 (16.16%) Verification and Validation
5 188 (15.82%) Analytics
6 155 (13.05%) Data Validation
7 152 (12.79%) AI
8 149 (12.54%) Test Automation
9 137 (11.53%) CI/CD
10 134 (11.28%) Business Intelligence
11 132 (11.11%) Systems Engineering
12 127 (10.69%) Migration
13 123 (10.35%) Stakeholder Management
14 122 (10.27%) DevOps
15 120 (10.10%) Data Modelling
16 116 (9.76%) Mentoring
17 115 (9.68%) Decision-Making
18 112 (9.43%) ETL
19 110 (9.26%) User Acceptance Testing
20 102 (8.59%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 267 (22.47%) Python
2 249 (20.96%) SQL
3 52 (4.38%) Java
4 38 (3.20%) PowerShell
5 37 (3.11%) C++
6 35 (2.95%) C
7 30 (2.53%) JavaScript
8 25 (2.10%) Bash
9 18 (1.52%) C#
9 18 (1.52%) T-SQL
10 17 (1.43%) Go
11 15 (1.26%) MATLAB
12 14 (1.18%) TypeScript
13 11 (0.93%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 11 (0.93%) R
14 9 (0.76%) VBA
15 8 (0.67%) Embedded C
16 7 (0.59%) Apex Code
16 7 (0.59%) VB
17 6 (0.51%) PHP
Qualifications
1 271 (22.81%) Degree
2 155 (13.05%) Security Cleared
3 128 (10.77%) BPSS Clearance
4 60 (5.05%) SC Cleared
5 57 (4.80%) Master's Degree
6 41 (3.45%) Computer Science Degree
7 32 (2.69%) CISA
7 32 (2.69%) CISSP
8 31 (2.61%) CISM
9 30 (2.53%) DV Cleared
10 26 (2.19%) Chartered Engineer
11 25 (2.10%) CGEIT
11 25 (2.10%) FFIEC
11 25 (2.10%) SANS
12 23 (1.94%) HNC
12 23 (1.94%) PMI Certification
12 23 (1.94%) PMP
13 18 (1.52%) HND
14 17 (1.43%) ISTQB
15 10 (0.84%) ACCA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 151 (12.71%) Data Quality
2 145 (12.21%) QA
3 68 (5.72%) Accessibility
4 63 (5.30%) GDPR
5 40 (3.37%) ISO/IEC 15288
6 26 (2.19%) NIST
7 25 (2.10%) COBIT
8 18 (1.52%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 18 (1.52%) SLA
9 17 (1.43%) WCAG
10 15 (1.26%) IFRS
11 14 (1.18%) GRC
12 13 (1.09%) ISO 9001
13 10 (0.84%) Good Clinical Practice
13 10 (0.84%) IEC 61508
13 10 (0.84%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 9 (0.76%) 21 CFR Part 11
14 9 (0.76%) GAAP
15 8 (0.67%) ISO 20022
15 8 (0.67%) ISO/IEC 12207
System Software
1 71 (5.98%) Docker
2 26 (2.19%) Active Directory
3 25 (2.10%) Firmware
4 15 (1.26%) VMware Infrastructure
5 9 (0.76%) vSphere
6 6 (0.51%) Hyper-V
6 6 (0.51%) KVM
7 4 (0.34%) Embedded Firmware
7 4 (0.34%) VMware ESXi
8 2 (0.17%) Ceph
8 2 (0.17%) Lustre
8 2 (0.17%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 2 (0.17%) Terminal Services
9 1 (0.084%) iptables
9 1 (0.084%) OpenAM
9 1 (0.084%) OpenDJ
9 1 (0.084%) OpenIDM
9 1 (0.084%) pfSense
9 1 (0.084%) vCloud
9 1 (0.084%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 67 (5.64%) Kubernetes
2 45 (3.79%) Terraform
3 31 (2.61%) Grafana
4 25 (2.10%) Ansible
5 15 (1.26%) Prometheus
6 12 (1.01%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
7 10 (0.84%) SCCM
8 8 (0.67%) Puppet
9 7 (0.59%) Microsoft Intune
10 5 (0.42%) Argo
10 5 (0.42%) Rancher
10 5 (0.42%) yum
11 4 (0.34%) Functional Safety
12 2 (0.17%) BMC PATROL
12 2 (0.17%) Nessus
12 2 (0.17%) PowerCLI
13 1 (0.084%) Control-M
13 1 (0.084%) FortiGate
13 1 (0.084%) Kibana
13 1 (0.084%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 151 (12.71%) Microsoft
2 60 (5.05%) Oracle
2 60 (5.05%) SAP
3 46 (3.87%) Salesforce
4 23 (1.94%) VMware
5 22 (1.85%) Red Hat
6 20 (1.68%) IBM
7 19 (1.60%) Foundry
8 18 (1.52%) Cisco
9 16 (1.35%) Adobe
9 16 (1.35%) Databricks
9 16 (1.35%) OpenAI
9 16 (1.35%) ServiceNow
10 15 (1.26%) Google
11 13 (1.09%) Workday
12 12 (1.01%) Automation Anywhere
12 12 (1.01%) UiPath
13 11 (0.93%) Software AG
14 10 (0.84%) Citrix
15 9 (0.76%) Siemens