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

6 months to
4 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 154 167 184
Rank change year-on-year +13 +17 -33
Permanent jobs citing Validation 974 900 1,222
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.51% 1.76% 1.67%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.88% 1.92% 1.89%
Number of salaries quoted 517 309 721
10th Percentile £36,250 £38,350 £35,000
25th Percentile £43,750 £47,000 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% - -15.38%
75th Percentile £77,500 £72,500 £72,500
90th Percentile £90,500 £100,000 £83,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £52,600 £52,500
% change year-on-year +4.56% +0.19% -4.55%

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 51,688 46,838 64,785
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 80.04% 91.77% 88.53%
Number of salaries quoted 30,626 22,631 50,390
10th Percentile £28,750 £35,000 £29,500
25th Percentile £38,000 £46,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -12.00%
75th Percentile £75,900 £80,000 £75,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £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 4 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 4 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 +15 871 £60,000 +9.09% 719
UK excluding London +8 609 £55,000 +4.56% 616
London +51 299 £75,000 +7.14% 204
Work from Home +90 260 £60,000 +7.14% 334
South East +31 194 £50,000 -9.09% 211
North of England -19 128 £60,000 +25.83% 112
Midlands -2 87 £35,000 -33.33% 108
North West -1 86 £55,000 +15.35% 63
East of England +14 79 £59,000 +7.27% 95
South West +20 71 £60,000 +14.07% 85
West Midlands +11 56 £38,750 -29.55% 74
Scotland -28 39 £42,000 -27.63% 30
Yorkshire -15 33 £62,825 +55.23% 41
East Midlands +4 30 £35,000 -32.69% 33
North East -15 9 £41,000 -1.20% 8
Wales -1 8 £65,000 +32.37% 6
Northern Ireland -24 3 - -

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 23 (2.36%) Confluence
2 18 (1.85%) Apache Airflow
3 12 (1.23%) Appian
4 11 (1.13%) Apache Spark
4 11 (1.13%) SharePoint
5 10 (1.03%) Microsoft Exchange
6 9 (0.92%) CMS
7 7 (0.72%) Apache
8 4 (0.41%) Headless CMS
8 4 (0.41%) SugarCRM
9 3 (0.31%) Jupyter
9 3 (0.31%) SAS
10 2 (0.21%) Kinematics
10 2 (0.21%) WordPress
11 1 (0.10%) Anypoint
11 1 (0.10%) Apache Superset
11 1 (0.10%) ArcGIS
11 1 (0.10%) FileNet
Applications
1 74 (7.60%) Microsoft Excel
2 64 (6.57%) Microsoft Office
3 13 (1.33%) MS Visio
4 11 (1.13%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 9 (0.92%) Simulink
6 7 (0.72%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 4 (0.41%) Fusion 360
7 4 (0.41%) Mathcad
8 3 (0.31%) Revit
9 2 (0.21%) Adobe After Effects
9 2 (0.21%) Adobe Captivate
9 2 (0.21%) Adobe Illustrator
9 2 (0.21%) Adobe Premiere
9 2 (0.21%) AutoCAD
9 2 (0.21%) Elementor
9 2 (0.21%) Oracle Smart View
9 2 (0.21%) Photoshop
9 2 (0.21%) Weka
10 1 (0.10%) Navisworks
10 1 (0.10%) OrCAD
Business Applications
1 18 (1.85%) SAP S/4HANA
2 12 (1.23%) Dynamics CRM
3 7 (0.72%) Workday HCM
4 4 (0.41%) Markit EDM
4 4 (0.41%) SAP BPC
5 3 (0.31%) Oracle ERP
5 3 (0.31%) SAP CX
6 2 (0.21%) Endur
6 2 (0.21%) IBM Planning Analytics
6 2 (0.21%) NetSuite
6 2 (0.21%) Primavera
6 2 (0.21%) SAP ERP
7 1 (0.10%) Loan IQ
7 1 (0.10%) Magento
7 1 (0.10%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 1 (0.10%) Remedy ITSM
7 1 (0.10%) SAP Business ByDesign
7 1 (0.10%) SAP Business One
7 1 (0.10%) SAP EWM
7 1 (0.10%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 153 (15.71%) Azure
2 85 (8.73%) Power Platform
3 69 (7.08%) AWS
4 47 (4.83%) SaaS
5 41 (4.21%) Azure DevOps
6 31 (3.18%) GCP
7 26 (2.67%) Azure Data Factory
7 26 (2.67%) Snowflake
8 21 (2.16%) Dynamics 365
9 19 (1.95%) Power Automate
10 18 (1.85%) dbt
10 18 (1.85%) Microsoft 365
11 17 (1.75%) Entra ID
12 16 (1.64%) GitHub
13 13 (1.33%) Datadog
14 12 (1.23%) Anthropic Claude
14 12 (1.23%) Azure AI
15 11 (1.13%) Amazon S3
15 11 (1.13%) Figma
16 8 (0.82%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 18 (1.85%) CHAP
2 14 (1.44%) Firewall
2 14 (1.44%) WAN
3 11 (1.13%) 5G
3 11 (1.13%) LAN
3 11 (1.13%) SD-WAN
4 9 (0.92%) DNS
5 8 (0.82%) HTTP
5 8 (0.82%) MQTT
5 8 (0.82%) TCP/IP
5 8 (0.82%) Wireless
6 7 (0.72%) Modbus
7 6 (0.62%) Ethernet VPN
8 5 (0.51%) BGP
8 5 (0.51%) Cisco IOS
8 5 (0.51%) OSPF
8 5 (0.51%) VoIP
8 5 (0.51%) WAAS
9 4 (0.41%) Internet
9 4 (0.41%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 81 (8.32%) Power BI
2 41 (4.21%) SQL Server
3 31 (3.18%) Data Warehouse
4 26 (2.67%) Metadata
5 22 (2.26%) Relational Database
6 17 (1.75%) Tableau
7 13 (1.33%) Oracle Reports
8 12 (1.23%) Pinecone
9 11 (1.13%) Azure SQL Database
10 10 (1.03%) Data Lake
10 10 (1.03%) PostgreSQL
10 10 (1.03%) Spotfire
11 9 (0.92%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 8 (0.82%) Big Data
13 7 (0.72%) Amazon Redshift
13 7 (0.72%) BigQuery
13 7 (0.72%) GIS
14 6 (0.62%) DB2
14 6 (0.62%) NoSQL
14 6 (0.62%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 70 (7.19%) JIRA
2 49 (5.03%) Rational DOORS
3 47 (4.83%) Git
4 24 (2.46%) Postman
5 21 (2.16%) Jenkins
6 15 (1.54%) MLflow
7 14 (1.44%) LabVIEW
8 13 (1.33%) Cucumber
8 13 (1.33%) GitLab
8 13 (1.33%) Selenium
8 13 (1.33%) TestRail
9 12 (1.23%) JMeter
10 10 (1.03%) Eclipse
11 9 (0.92%) SoapUI
12 7 (0.72%) LoadRunner
12 7 (0.72%) Locust
13 6 (0.62%) Zephyr
14 5 (0.51%) Charles Proxy
14 5 (0.51%) Robot Framework
14 5 (0.51%) SpecFlow
General
1 349 (35.83%) Social Skills
2 282 (28.95%) Finance
3 215 (22.07%) Analytical Skills
4 66 (6.78%) Banking
5 58 (5.95%) Electronics
6 50 (5.13%) Marketing
7 48 (4.93%) Financial Institution
8 47 (4.83%) Manufacturing
9 45 (4.62%) Presentation Skills
10 42 (4.31%) Aerospace
11 37 (3.80%) Public Sector
12 33 (3.39%) Law
13 32 (3.29%) Legal
14 31 (3.18%) Retail
14 31 (3.18%) Telecoms
15 29 (2.98%) Organisational Skills
16 24 (2.46%) Documentation Skills
16 24 (2.46%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 21 (2.16%) Pharmaceutical
18 17 (1.75%) Aviation
Job Titles
1 156 (16.02%) Analyst
2 142 (14.58%) Senior
3 106 (10.88%) Systems Engineer
4 75 (7.70%) Lead
5 60 (6.16%) Business Analyst
6 58 (5.95%) Architect
7 51 (5.24%) Test Engineer
8 47 (4.83%) Validation Engineer
9 42 (4.31%) Integration Engineer
10 36 (3.70%) Junior
11 34 (3.49%) Data Analyst
11 34 (3.49%) Developer
12 33 (3.39%) Principal Engineer
13 32 (3.29%) Systems Integration Engineer
14 30 (3.08%) Applications Support
14 30 (3.08%) Data Engineer
15 27 (2.77%) Solutions Architect
16 26 (2.67%) Senior Systems Engineer
16 26 (2.67%) Support Engineer
17 25 (2.57%) Verification Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 50 (5.13%) REST
2 30 (3.08%) Middleware
3 29 (2.98%) JSON
4 27 (2.77%) pytest
5 26 (2.67%) Pandas
6 22 (2.26%) PyTorch
6 22 (2.26%) XML
7 21 (2.16%) scikit-learn
7 21 (2.16%) TensorFlow
8 19 (1.95%) NumPy
9 17 (1.75%) OAuth
10 16 (1.64%) FastAPI
10 16 (1.64%) JWT
10 16 (1.64%) Swagger
10 16 (1.64%) Web Services
11 15 (1.54%) Flask
12 14 (1.44%) CSS
13 13 (1.33%) HTML
13 13 (1.33%) React
13 13 (1.33%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 61 (6.26%) Management Information System
2 42 (4.31%) Onboarding
3 37 (3.80%) Product Ownership
4 32 (3.29%) Self-Motivation
5 27 (2.77%) Data Structures
6 26 (2.67%) Legacy Systems
7 22 (2.26%) Low-Code
8 21 (2.16%) Life Science
9 17 (1.75%) Algorithms
10 16 (1.64%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 15 (1.54%) Analytical Mindset
12 14 (1.44%) Data Centre
12 14 (1.44%) Enterprise Software
13 13 (1.33%) Embedded Systems
14 12 (1.23%) SWIFT Messaging Network
15 11 (1.13%) Blockchain
15 11 (1.13%) Self-Driving Car
16 10 (1.03%) IoT
16 10 (1.03%) Reinsurance
16 10 (1.03%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 53 (5.44%) Windows
2 42 (4.31%) Linux
3 12 (1.23%) Android
3 12 (1.23%) Unix
3 12 (1.23%) Windows Server
4 4 (0.41%) Apple iOS
4 4 (0.41%) CentOS
4 4 (0.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 3 (0.31%) Robot Operating System
6 2 (0.21%) AIX
6 2 (0.21%) Mac OS
6 2 (0.21%) VxWorks
6 2 (0.21%) Windows 10
7 1 (0.10%) FreeRTOS
7 1 (0.10%) Rocky
7 1 (0.10%) Ubuntu
7 1 (0.10%) Windows Server 2016
7 1 (0.10%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 253 (25.98%) Agile
2 228 (23.41%) Problem-Solving
3 162 (16.63%) Verification and Validation
4 136 (13.96%) Continuous Improvement
5 126 (12.94%) Data Validation
6 124 (12.73%) Analytics
7 117 (12.01%) Migration
8 114 (11.70%) Test Automation
9 112 (11.50%) Systems Engineering
10 110 (11.29%) DevOps
11 107 (10.99%) CI/CD
12 102 (10.47%) Business Intelligence
13 94 (9.65%) AI
14 93 (9.55%) ETL
15 90 (9.24%) Mentoring
16 86 (8.83%) Decision-Making
17 85 (8.73%) Software Engineering
18 84 (8.62%) Roadmaps
19 81 (8.32%) Stakeholder Management
20 80 (8.21%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 209 (21.46%) SQL
2 182 (18.69%) Python
3 38 (3.90%) C
4 37 (3.80%) C++
5 35 (3.59%) Java
6 33 (3.39%) PowerShell
7 25 (2.57%) MATLAB
8 24 (2.46%) JavaScript
9 19 (1.95%) Bash
10 13 (1.33%) C#
11 12 (1.23%) TypeScript
12 11 (1.13%) R
12 11 (1.13%) T-SQL
13 6 (0.62%) Bicep
13 6 (0.62%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 6 (0.62%) PL/SQL
14 5 (0.51%) Apex Code
14 5 (0.51%) Go
14 5 (0.51%) PHP
15 4 (0.41%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 267 (27.41%) Degree
2 131 (13.45%) Security Cleared
3 118 (12.11%) BPSS Clearance
4 54 (5.54%) Master's Degree
4 54 (5.54%) SC Cleared
5 41 (4.21%) Computer Science Degree
6 21 (2.16%) CISA
6 21 (2.16%) CISSP
6 21 (2.16%) DV Cleared
7 19 (1.95%) CGEIT
7 19 (1.95%) CISM
7 19 (1.95%) FFIEC
7 19 (1.95%) SANS
8 18 (1.85%) HNC
9 17 (1.75%) Chartered Engineer
10 16 (1.64%) ISTQB
10 16 (1.64%) PMI Certification
10 16 (1.64%) PMP
11 13 (1.33%) Cisco Certification
12 12 (1.23%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 111 (11.40%) QA
2 108 (11.09%) Data Quality
3 48 (4.93%) ISO/IEC 15288
4 44 (4.52%) GDPR
5 34 (3.49%) Accessibility
6 28 (2.87%) SLA
7 19 (1.95%) COBIT
7 19 (1.95%) NIST
8 17 (1.75%) ISO/IEC 12207
9 14 (1.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 13 (1.33%) GRC
11 12 (1.23%) ISO 20022
11 12 (1.23%) SEPA
11 12 (1.23%) WCAG
12 10 (1.03%) Good Clinical Practice
13 9 (0.92%) 21 CFR Part 11
14 8 (0.82%) GxP
14 8 (0.82%) ISO 9001
14 8 (0.82%) TARGET2
15 7 (0.72%) IFRS
System Software
1 53 (5.44%) Docker
2 23 (2.36%) Firmware
3 17 (1.75%) Active Directory
4 5 (0.51%) Embedded Firmware
4 5 (0.51%) VMware Infrastructure
5 4 (0.41%) Hyper-V
6 3 (0.31%) VMware ESXi
6 3 (0.31%) vSphere
7 2 (0.21%) Ceph
7 2 (0.21%) Lustre
7 2 (0.21%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 1 (0.10%) iptables
8 1 (0.10%) KVM
8 1 (0.10%) Microsoft Virtual Server
8 1 (0.10%) OpenDJ
8 1 (0.10%) pfSense
8 1 (0.10%) Terminal Services
8 1 (0.10%) vCloud
8 1 (0.10%) Virtual Machines
8 1 (0.10%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 45 (4.62%) Kubernetes
2 26 (2.67%) Terraform
3 17 (1.75%) Grafana
4 16 (1.64%) Ansible
5 8 (0.82%) Microsoft Intune
5 8 (0.82%) Prometheus
6 7 (0.72%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
7 6 (0.62%) SCCM
8 4 (0.41%) Argo
8 4 (0.41%) Rancher
8 4 (0.41%) yum
9 3 (0.31%) Puppet
10 2 (0.21%) BMC PATROL
10 2 (0.21%) Kubeflow
10 2 (0.21%) Nessus
11 1 (0.10%) Control-M
11 1 (0.10%) Docker Swarm
11 1 (0.10%) Functional Safety
11 1 (0.10%) PowerCLI
11 1 (0.10%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 124 (12.73%) Microsoft
2 54 (5.54%) SAP
3 37 (3.80%) Oracle
4 33 (3.39%) Salesforce
5 27 (2.77%) IBM
6 26 (2.67%) Cisco
7 17 (1.75%) Foundry
7 17 (1.75%) OpenAI
8 14 (1.44%) Software AG
9 13 (1.33%) Adobe
9 13 (1.33%) ServiceNow
10 12 (1.23%) Automation Anywhere
10 12 (1.23%) UiPath
11 10 (1.03%) F5
12 9 (0.92%) CheckPoint
12 9 (0.92%) Databricks
12 9 (0.92%) Workday
13 8 (0.82%) Intapp
13 8 (0.82%) Splunk
13 8 (0.82%) VMware