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 7 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
7 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 126 81 197
Rank change year-on-year -45 +116 0
Permanent jobs citing Validation 1,384 1,598 1,459
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.51% 3.66% 1.52%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.03% 3.93% 1.77%
Number of salaries quoted 777 432 784
10th Percentile £34,500 £40,000 £35,500
25th Percentile £42,750 £46,250 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £56,500 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +6.19% +2.73% -12.00%
75th Percentile £77,500 £71,250 £72,108
90th Percentile £95,000 £95,000 £85,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,500 £55,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year -4.55% +4.76% -4.55%

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 68,096 40,631 82,220
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 74.48% 93.01% 85.54%
Number of salaries quoted 42,564 22,679 59,766
10th Percentile £30,000 £30,580 £29,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £42,500 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £59,773 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -0.38% +9.09% -10.57%
75th Percentile £78,750 £80,000 £72,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £102,500 £92,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,000 £52,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year -0.95% +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 7 May 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 7 May 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 -52 1,229 £60,000 +7.14% 911
UK excluding London -72 900 £52,500 -4.55% 723
Work from Home +119 429 £57,500 -2.13% 426
London +62 363 £77,500 +10.71% 308
South East -42 289 £55,000 +7.84% 235
North of England +33 219 £55,000 +15.35% 137
Midlands -83 151 £40,000 -27.27% 97
North West +36 136 £58,000 +21.64% 77
West Midlands -9 97 £44,000 -32.31% 57
East of England -83 97 £60,000 +5.26% 102
South West -53 90 £52,500 -3.67% 101
Yorkshire -26 52 £57,000 +20.00% 47
East Midlands -96 52 £30,000 -41.18% 40
Scotland -22 41 £42,000 -27.63% 37
North East 0 31 £52,500 -7.49% 15
Wales -25 13 £44,000 -15.47% 21
Northern Ireland -38 2 - - 14

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 46 (3.32%) Apache Airflow
2 28 (2.02%) Apache Spark
3 26 (1.88%) Apache
4 25 (1.81%) Confluence
5 21 (1.52%) ArcGIS
6 16 (1.16%) Microsoft Exchange
7 12 (0.87%) Appian
8 10 (0.72%) CMS
9 8 (0.58%) SharePoint
10 6 (0.43%) Kinematics
11 3 (0.22%) Jupyter
12 2 (0.14%) Artix
12 2 (0.14%) Headless CMS
12 2 (0.14%) IIS
12 2 (0.14%) SAS
13 1 (0.072%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 1 (0.072%) Anypoint
13 1 (0.072%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 91 (6.58%) Microsoft Excel
2 61 (4.41%) Microsoft Office
3 20 (1.45%) MS Visio
4 14 (1.01%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 8 (0.58%) Microsoft Project
5 8 (0.58%) Simulink
6 6 (0.43%) Spreadsheet
7 5 (0.36%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 4 (0.29%) CANalyzer
8 4 (0.29%) Fusion 360
9 3 (0.22%) AutoCAD
9 3 (0.22%) Solid Edge
9 3 (0.22%) SOLIDWORKS
10 2 (0.14%) Adobe XD
10 2 (0.14%) Autodesk Inventor
10 2 (0.14%) CATIA
10 2 (0.14%) Oracle Smart View
10 2 (0.14%) Sketch
11 1 (0.072%) PTC Creo
11 1 (0.072%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 35 (2.53%) SAP S/4HANA
2 21 (1.52%) Dynamics CRM
3 10 (0.72%) SAP ERP
4 9 (0.65%) Oracle ERP
5 6 (0.43%) Elite 3E
5 6 (0.43%) Loan IQ
5 6 (0.43%) SAP MDG
5 6 (0.43%) Workday HCM
6 4 (0.29%) Markit EDM
6 4 (0.29%) SAP MDG-BP
7 3 (0.22%) iTrent
7 3 (0.22%) Oracle Applications
7 3 (0.22%) Oracle EBS
8 2 (0.14%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 2 (0.14%) SAP FSCM
8 2 (0.14%) SAP PSCD
9 1 (0.072%) Oracle Payables
9 1 (0.072%) Oracle Receivables
9 1 (0.072%) SAP BRIM
9 1 (0.072%) SAP Business ByDesign
Cloud Services
1 202 (14.60%) Azure
2 140 (10.12%) AWS
3 120 (8.67%) Power Platform
4 59 (4.26%) SaaS
5 54 (3.90%) GCP
6 45 (3.25%) Azure DevOps
7 35 (2.53%) Azure Data Factory
8 34 (2.46%) Dynamics 365
9 32 (2.31%) Serverless
10 30 (2.17%) Snowflake
11 29 (2.10%) Microsoft 365
12 28 (2.02%) GitHub
13 27 (1.95%) Amazon S3
14 25 (1.81%) Power Automate
15 24 (1.73%) dbt
15 24 (1.73%) Entra ID
16 16 (1.16%) OpenShift
17 15 (1.08%) Anthropic Claude
17 15 (1.08%) Azure AI
18 12 (0.87%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 42 (3.03%) Broadband
2 32 (2.31%) Firewall
3 29 (2.10%) CHAP
4 24 (1.73%) DNS
5 21 (1.52%) WAN
6 19 (1.37%) TCP/IP
6 19 (1.37%) Wireless
7 17 (1.23%) SD-WAN
8 14 (1.01%) 5G
9 12 (0.87%) HTTP
10 10 (0.72%) Wireshark
11 9 (0.65%) LAN
11 9 (0.65%) Modbus
11 9 (0.65%) NAS
11 9 (0.65%) VPN
12 8 (0.58%) MQTT
12 8 (0.58%) Multicast
13 7 (0.51%) Ethernet
13 7 (0.51%) Network Security
13 7 (0.51%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 113 (8.16%) Power BI
2 49 (3.54%) SQL Server
3 45 (3.25%) Tableau
4 40 (2.89%) PostgreSQL
5 35 (2.53%) Data Warehouse
5 35 (2.53%) Metadata
6 31 (2.24%) Relational Database
7 25 (1.81%) QGIS
8 23 (1.66%) GIS
9 21 (1.52%) Data Lake
10 20 (1.45%) MongoDB
10 20 (1.45%) Spatial Data
11 18 (1.30%) Oracle Reports
12 17 (1.23%) Spark SQL
13 16 (1.16%) Azure SQL Database
14 15 (1.08%) Oracle Database
15 14 (1.01%) BigQuery
15 14 (1.01%) MySQL
15 14 (1.01%) Parquet
15 14 (1.01%) Semantic Layer
Development Applications
1 65 (4.70%) Git
1 65 (4.70%) JIRA
2 39 (2.82%) Rational DOORS
3 29 (2.10%) Jenkins
4 21 (1.52%) GitLab
5 17 (1.23%) LabVIEW
5 17 (1.23%) Postman
5 17 (1.23%) Snyk
6 15 (1.08%) MLflow
6 15 (1.08%) Selenium
7 13 (0.94%) IBM UrbanCode
8 12 (0.87%) Cucumber
8 12 (0.87%) JMeter
9 11 (0.79%) TestRail
10 10 (0.72%) Eclipse
11 7 (0.51%) LoadRunner
12 6 (0.43%) Cypress.io
13 5 (0.36%) Robot Framework
13 5 (0.36%) SpecFlow
13 5 (0.36%) Subversion
General
1 452 (32.66%) Social Skills
2 371 (26.81%) Finance
3 295 (21.32%) Analytical Skills
4 109 (7.88%) Manufacturing
5 100 (7.23%) Aerospace
6 91 (6.58%) Electronics
7 86 (6.21%) Banking
8 70 (5.06%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 58 (4.19%) Legal
10 49 (3.54%) Public Sector
11 45 (3.25%) Retail
12 42 (3.03%) Law
12 42 (3.03%) Marketing
13 41 (2.96%) Financial Institution
14 40 (2.89%) Pharmaceutical
15 36 (2.60%) Presentation Skills
16 33 (2.38%) Organisational Skills
17 31 (2.24%) Games
18 29 (2.10%) Automotive
19 23 (1.66%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 228 (16.47%) Senior
2 224 (16.18%) Analyst
3 155 (11.20%) Systems Engineer
4 99 (7.15%) Lead
5 91 (6.58%) Test Engineer
6 88 (6.36%) Architect
7 85 (6.14%) Business Analyst
8 82 (5.92%) Validation Engineer
9 68 (4.91%) Consultant
10 59 (4.26%) Data Analyst
11 52 (3.76%) Integration Engineer
12 50 (3.61%) Data Engineer
13 46 (3.32%) Developer
14 44 (3.18%) Junior
14 44 (3.18%) Senior Systems Engineer
15 41 (2.96%) Principal Engineer
16 38 (2.75%) Verification Engineer
17 36 (2.60%) Systems Integration Engineer
18 35 (2.53%) Software Validation Engineer
19 32 (2.31%) Auditor
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 52 (3.76%) REST
2 37 (2.67%) PyTorch
3 34 (2.46%) JSON
3 34 (2.46%) Pandas
4 29 (2.10%) Middleware
5 28 (2.02%) RESTful
6 27 (1.95%) pytest
7 22 (1.59%) PySpark
7 22 (1.59%) XML
8 20 (1.45%) OAuth
9 19 (1.37%) Swagger
10 18 (1.30%) .NET
10 18 (1.30%) JWT
11 17 (1.23%) Kafka
11 17 (1.23%) NumPy
11 17 (1.23%) Playwright
11 17 (1.23%) TensorFlow
12 15 (1.08%) CSS
13 14 (1.01%) Oracle Fusion
13 14 (1.01%) React
Miscellaneous
1 82 (5.92%) Management Information System
2 58 (4.19%) Onboarding
3 50 (3.61%) Data Structures
4 44 (3.18%) Low-Code
5 41 (2.96%) Cloud Native
6 38 (2.75%) Algorithms
7 37 (2.67%) Product Ownership
8 36 (2.60%) Self-Motivation
9 34 (2.46%) Legacy Systems
10 29 (2.10%) Analytical Mindset
11 28 (2.02%) Life Science
12 26 (1.88%) Data Centre
13 23 (1.66%) Embedded Systems
14 21 (1.52%) Enterprise Software
15 18 (1.30%) SCADA
15 18 (1.30%) Video\Live Streaming
16 17 (1.23%) Driving Licence
16 17 (1.23%) Robotics
17 16 (1.16%) Distributed Systems
18 15 (1.08%) Blockchain
Operating Systems
1 79 (5.71%) Linux
2 66 (4.77%) Windows
3 21 (1.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 21 (1.52%) Windows Server
4 20 (1.45%) Unix
5 13 (0.94%) Android
6 5 (0.36%) Apple iOS
7 4 (0.29%) CentOS
7 4 (0.29%) FreeRTOS
7 4 (0.29%) Mac OS X
8 3 (0.22%) AIX
8 3 (0.22%) Kali Linux
8 3 (0.22%) Robot Operating System
9 2 (0.14%) ThreadX
10 1 (0.072%) Embedded Linux
10 1 (0.072%) Rocky
10 1 (0.072%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.072%) VxWorks
10 1 (0.072%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 306 (22.11%) Problem-Solving
2 289 (20.88%) Agile
3 265 (19.15%) Continuous Improvement
4 214 (15.46%) Analytics
5 210 (15.17%) Verification and Validation
6 207 (14.96%) AI
7 183 (13.22%) Test Automation
8 182 (13.15%) CI/CD
9 163 (11.78%) Data Validation
10 151 (10.91%) Migration
11 142 (10.26%) Data Modelling
12 141 (10.19%) Business Intelligence
13 136 (9.83%) Decision-Making
14 135 (9.75%) Stakeholder Management
15 132 (9.54%) User Acceptance Testing
16 130 (9.39%) Data Governance
17 129 (9.32%) Systems Engineering
18 127 (9.18%) Stakeholder Engagement
19 125 (9.03%) Mentoring
20 123 (8.89%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 307 (22.18%) Python
2 271 (19.58%) SQL
3 50 (3.61%) C++
4 48 (3.47%) Java
5 41 (2.96%) C
6 37 (2.67%) PowerShell
7 32 (2.31%) Go
8 27 (1.95%) Bash
8 27 (1.95%) JavaScript
9 24 (1.73%) C#
10 22 (1.59%) MATLAB
11 18 (1.30%) T-SQL
12 13 (0.94%) TypeScript
13 12 (0.87%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 12 (0.87%) Embedded C
14 9 (0.65%) R
14 9 (0.65%) VBA
15 7 (0.51%) ABAP
15 7 (0.51%) Apex Code
15 7 (0.51%) VB
Qualifications
1 307 (22.18%) Degree
2 167 (12.07%) Security Cleared
3 130 (9.39%) BPSS Clearance
4 66 (4.77%) Master's Degree
5 63 (4.55%) SC Cleared
6 40 (2.89%) Computer Science Degree
7 39 (2.82%) CISA
7 39 (2.82%) CISSP
7 39 (2.82%) DV Cleared
8 36 (2.60%) Chartered Engineer
8 36 (2.60%) CISM
9 34 (2.46%) SANS
10 29 (2.10%) CGEIT
10 29 (2.10%) FFIEC
11 28 (2.02%) HNC
12 24 (1.73%) HND
13 23 (1.66%) PMI Certification
14 20 (1.45%) PMP
15 13 (0.94%) ISTQB
16 10 (0.72%) CIMA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 193 (13.95%) Data Quality
2 149 (10.77%) QA
3 66 (4.77%) GDPR
4 59 (4.26%) Accessibility
5 37 (2.67%) ISO/IEC 15288
6 35 (2.53%) GRC
7 31 (2.24%) NIST
8 29 (2.10%) COBIT
9 21 (1.52%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 20 (1.45%) IFRS
11 19 (1.37%) IEC 61508
12 15 (1.08%) SLA
13 13 (0.94%) GAAP
13 13 (0.94%) ISO 9001
14 11 (0.79%) GMP
14 11 (0.79%) PMO
15 10 (0.72%) Good Clinical Practice
15 10 (0.72%) WCAG
16 9 (0.65%) 21 CFR Part 11
16 9 (0.65%) ISO/IEC 12207
System Software
1 61 (4.41%) Docker
2 36 (2.60%) Active Directory
3 29 (2.10%) Firmware
4 18 (1.30%) Virtual Machines
5 15 (1.08%) VMware Infrastructure
5 15 (1.08%) vSphere
6 6 (0.43%) Hyper-V
6 6 (0.43%) KVM
7 5 (0.36%) Embedded Firmware
8 3 (0.22%) VMware ESXi
9 2 (0.14%) Terminal Services
10 1 (0.072%) iptables
10 1 (0.072%) OpenAM
10 1 (0.072%) OpenDJ
10 1 (0.072%) OpenIDM
10 1 (0.072%) pfSense
Systems Management
1 66 (4.77%) Kubernetes
2 46 (3.32%) Terraform
3 32 (2.31%) Grafana
4 25 (1.81%) Ansible
5 17 (1.23%) Prometheus
6 15 (1.08%) Functional Safety
7 14 (1.01%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
8 11 (0.79%) SCCM
9 10 (0.72%) Puppet
10 8 (0.58%) Microsoft Intune
11 4 (0.29%) Argo
11 4 (0.29%) Cilium
11 4 (0.29%) Rancher
11 4 (0.29%) yum
12 3 (0.22%) HP Fortify
12 3 (0.22%) Kibana
13 2 (0.14%) BMC PATROL
13 2 (0.14%) Computer Incident Response Team
13 2 (0.14%) PowerCLI
14 1 (0.072%) Nessus
Vendors
1 179 (12.93%) Microsoft
2 76 (5.49%) Oracle
3 67 (4.84%) SAP
4 47 (3.40%) Salesforce
5 29 (2.10%) Red Hat
5 29 (2.10%) VMware
6 26 (1.88%) Databricks
7 21 (1.52%) Cisco
8 20 (1.45%) CrowdStrike
9 19 (1.37%) Google
9 19 (1.37%) Palo Alto
10 18 (1.30%) IBM
10 18 (1.30%) ServiceNow
11 17 (1.23%) Foundry
11 17 (1.23%) Tenable
12 16 (1.16%) Adobe
12 16 (1.16%) OpenAI
13 14 (1.01%) Citrix
14 12 (0.87%) Automation Anywhere
14 12 (0.87%) UiPath