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

6 months to
30 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 106 88 211
Rank change year-on-year -18 +123 -14
Permanent jobs citing Validation 1,778 1,671 1,134
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.74% 3.39% 1.30%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.36% 3.78% 1.60%
Number of salaries quoted 1,045 507 575
10th Percentile £35,000 £39,000 £36,100
25th Percentile £42,215 £42,500 £43,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £55,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year - -4.35% -8.00%
75th Percentile £75,000 £71,250 £72,500
90th Percentile £90,000 £91,900 £87,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £53,000 £52,600 £54,250
% change year-on-year +0.76% -3.04% -1.44%

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 75,424 44,229 70,800
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.68% 89.64% 81.30%
Number of salaries quoted 51,991 25,065 47,390
10th Percentile £30,500 £28,750 £30,000
25th Percentile £41,250 £37,500 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% - -8.33%
75th Percentile £78,750 £76,250 £73,750
90th Percentile £100,000 £97,500 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £50,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +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 30 July 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 July 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 -19 1,618 £55,000 - 1,147
UK excluding London -40 1,207 £53,000 +0.76% 802
Work from Home +110 569 £56,000 -6.67% 419
London +75 458 £75,000 -6.25% 461
South East -35 361 £56,000 +1.82% 257
North of England +103 342 £55,000 +15.79% 161
North West +82 204 £55,000 +15.35% 87
Midlands -60 188 £42,500 -22.73% 127
South West -32 127 £51,250 -2.57% 113
East of England -81 111 £62,500 +9.65% 105
West Midlands +8 102 £44,000 -23.48% 74
East Midlands -69 85 £42,500 - 53
Yorkshire +13 72 £43,000 +1.18% 39
North East +4 66 £55,000 +41.94% 37
Scotland +16 50 £52,500 -9.53% 44
Wales -41 28 £47,500 -11.63% 14
Northern Ireland -66 2 - - 2

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 58 (3.26%) Apache Airflow
2 55 (3.09%) Apache Spark
3 53 (2.98%) Apache
4 32 (1.80%) Confluence
5 31 (1.74%) SharePoint
6 21 (1.18%) ArcGIS
7 19 (1.07%) Jupyter
8 14 (0.79%) Microsoft Exchange
9 12 (0.67%) SAS
10 5 (0.28%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 5 (0.28%) CMS
11 4 (0.22%) Kinematics
12 3 (0.17%) Artix
12 3 (0.17%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 2 (0.11%) IIS
13 2 (0.11%) WinCC
14 1 (0.056%) Appian
14 1 (0.056%) Cloud Foundry
14 1 (0.056%) Oracle Workflow
14 1 (0.056%) WebSphere
Applications
1 101 (5.68%) Microsoft Excel
2 60 (3.37%) Microsoft Office
3 29 (1.63%) Microsoft Project
4 25 (1.41%) MS Visio
4 25 (1.41%) Simulink
5 13 (0.73%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 13 (0.73%) Spreadsheet
6 9 (0.51%) SOLIDWORKS
7 5 (0.28%) AutoCAD
7 5 (0.28%) LaTeX
8 4 (0.22%) Adobe XD
8 4 (0.22%) CANalyzer
8 4 (0.22%) Sketch
9 3 (0.17%) Autodesk Inventor
9 3 (0.17%) Mathcad
9 3 (0.17%) Productboard
9 3 (0.17%) Stateflow
10 2 (0.11%) Solid Edge
11 1 (0.056%) CATIA
11 1 (0.056%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 50 (2.81%) SAP S/4HANA
2 41 (2.31%) Dynamics CRM
3 11 (0.62%) SAP MDG
4 10 (0.56%) SAP ERP
5 9 (0.51%) Elite 3E
5 9 (0.51%) iTrent
5 9 (0.51%) Oracle EBS
6 8 (0.45%) Oracle Applications
6 8 (0.45%) Oracle ERP
7 5 (0.28%) Loan IQ
7 5 (0.28%) NetSuite
7 5 (0.28%) SAP MDG-BP
8 4 (0.22%) Oracle Financials
8 4 (0.22%) SAP MM
9 3 (0.17%) Teamcenter
9 3 (0.17%) Workday HCM
10 2 (0.11%) Oracle Payables
10 2 (0.11%) Oracle Receivables
10 2 (0.11%) SAP CO
10 2 (0.11%) SAP FI/CO
Cloud Services
1 269 (15.13%) Azure
2 249 (14.00%) AWS
3 167 (9.39%) Power Platform
4 84 (4.72%) GCP
5 82 (4.61%) SaaS
6 67 (3.77%) Azure DevOps
7 51 (2.87%) Microsoft 365
8 50 (2.81%) Serverless
9 47 (2.64%) GitHub
10 43 (2.42%) Amazon S3
11 39 (2.19%) Dynamics 365
12 24 (1.35%) Entra ID
12 24 (1.35%) GitHub Actions
13 23 (1.29%) Microsoft Copilot
14 22 (1.24%) Cloud Computing
14 22 (1.24%) Snowflake
15 21 (1.18%) Amazon EC2
16 20 (1.12%) Amazon EMR
16 20 (1.12%) Azure Data Factory
16 20 (1.12%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 71 (3.99%) Broadband
2 51 (2.87%) Firewall
3 41 (2.31%) DNS
4 30 (1.69%) TCP/IP
4 30 (1.69%) Wireless
5 24 (1.35%) Network Security
6 23 (1.29%) WAN
7 22 (1.24%) VPN
8 17 (0.96%) Ethernet
9 15 (0.84%) MQTT
9 15 (0.84%) SD-WAN
9 15 (0.84%) Wi-Fi
9 15 (0.84%) Wireshark
10 14 (0.79%) Internet
11 12 (0.67%) HTTP
11 12 (0.67%) LAN
12 11 (0.62%) 5G
12 11 (0.62%) CHAP
13 10 (0.56%) BGP
13 10 (0.56%) RS-232
Database & Business Intelligence
1 150 (8.44%) Power BI
2 58 (3.26%) PostgreSQL
3 57 (3.21%) Tableau
4 56 (3.15%) Data Warehouse
5 49 (2.76%) SQL Server
6 45 (2.53%) Metadata
7 35 (1.97%) Data Lake
8 34 (1.91%) MongoDB
9 29 (1.63%) Relational Database
10 27 (1.52%) BigQuery
11 25 (1.41%) QGIS
12 24 (1.35%) Semantic Layer
13 23 (1.29%) GIS
14 22 (1.24%) DynamoDB
15 21 (1.18%) Amazon Athena
15 21 (1.18%) MySQL
16 20 (1.12%) Azure SQL Database
16 20 (1.12%) Spark SQL
16 20 (1.12%) Spatial Data
17 19 (1.07%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 112 (6.30%) JIRA
2 94 (5.29%) Git
3 51 (2.87%) Jenkins
4 45 (2.53%) GitLab
5 33 (1.86%) Rational DOORS
6 22 (1.24%) Selenium
6 22 (1.24%) Snyk
7 19 (1.07%) Postman
8 15 (0.84%) Cypress.io
8 15 (0.84%) LabVIEW
9 14 (0.79%) JMeter
10 13 (0.73%) IBM UrbanCode
11 12 (0.67%) Cucumber
12 10 (0.56%) TeamCity
13 9 (0.51%) Burp Suite
13 9 (0.51%) REST Assured
14 8 (0.45%) Rational Rhapsody
15 6 (0.34%) GDB
15 6 (0.34%) Hudson
15 6 (0.34%) JUnit
General
1 601 (33.80%) Social Skills
2 497 (27.95%) Finance
3 430 (24.18%) Analytical Skills
4 153 (8.61%) Aerospace
5 148 (8.32%) Manufacturing
6 147 (8.27%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 130 (7.31%) Electronics
8 101 (5.68%) Banking
9 87 (4.89%) Law
10 72 (4.05%) Retail
11 70 (3.94%) Public Sector
12 61 (3.43%) Organisational Skills
13 59 (3.32%) Pharmaceutical
14 57 (3.21%) Legal
15 51 (2.87%) Marketing
16 45 (2.53%) Automotive
16 45 (2.53%) Games
17 33 (1.86%) Telecoms
18 32 (1.80%) Documentation Skills
19 29 (1.63%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 325 (18.28%) Senior
2 259 (14.57%) Analyst
3 155 (8.72%) Lead
4 126 (7.09%) Systems Engineer
5 111 (6.24%) Architect
6 110 (6.19%) Test Engineer
7 98 (5.51%) Consultant
8 94 (5.29%) Data Engineer
9 83 (4.67%) Developer
10 81 (4.56%) Business Analyst
11 71 (3.99%) Data Analyst
12 68 (3.82%) Validation Engineer
13 56 (3.15%) Software Engineer
14 52 (2.92%) Principal Engineer
15 45 (2.53%) Embedded Engineer
16 44 (2.47%) Support Engineer
17 40 (2.25%) IT Manager
18 39 (2.19%) Data Scientist
19 37 (2.08%) Project Manager
19 37 (2.08%) Senior Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 48 (2.70%) RESTful
2 39 (2.19%) Kafka
3 38 (2.14%) Node.js
3 38 (2.14%) PySpark
4 33 (1.86%) JSON
4 33 (1.86%) REST
5 32 (1.80%) PyTorch
6 31 (1.74%) XML
7 26 (1.46%) Pandas
8 25 (1.41%) .NET
9 24 (1.35%) Middleware
10 23 (1.29%) Playwright
11 20 (1.12%) CSS
12 19 (1.07%) HTML
12 19 (1.07%) LDAP
12 19 (1.07%) Regular Expression
12 19 (1.07%) XMPP
13 18 (1.01%) React
14 17 (0.96%) FastAPI
14 17 (0.96%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 126 (7.09%) Cloud Native
2 117 (6.58%) Onboarding
3 86 (4.84%) Management Information System
4 69 (3.88%) Algorithms
5 67 (3.77%) Data Structures
6 64 (3.60%) Product Ownership
7 57 (3.21%) Data Centre
8 48 (2.70%) Embedded Systems
9 47 (2.64%) Distributed Systems
9 47 (2.64%) Driving Licence
9 47 (2.64%) Enterprise Software
10 46 (2.59%) Low-Code
11 38 (2.14%) Analytical Mindset
12 33 (1.86%) Legacy Systems
12 33 (1.86%) Video\Live Streaming
13 31 (1.74%) AI Agents
13 31 (1.74%) Life Science
14 29 (1.63%) Self-Motivation
15 26 (1.46%) IoT
16 25 (1.41%) Robotics
Operating Systems
1 116 (6.52%) Linux
2 84 (4.72%) Windows
3 31 (1.74%) Windows Server
4 25 (1.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 19 (1.07%) Unix
6 6 (0.34%) Android
6 6 (0.34%) FreeRTOS
7 5 (0.28%) Embedded Linux
8 4 (0.22%) Kali Linux
8 4 (0.22%) Mac OS
8 4 (0.22%) Mac OS X
9 2 (0.11%) AIX
9 2 (0.11%) Robot Operating System
9 2 (0.11%) ThreadX
9 2 (0.11%) Windows 10
10 1 (0.056%) Apple iOS
10 1 (0.056%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 443 (24.92%) Problem-Solving
2 435 (24.47%) Continuous Improvement
3 379 (21.32%) Agile
4 342 (19.24%) AI
5 281 (15.80%) CI/CD
6 253 (14.23%) Analytics
7 233 (13.10%) Test Automation
8 232 (13.05%) Migration
8 232 (13.05%) Stakeholder Management
9 207 (11.64%) Mentoring
10 197 (11.08%) Decision-Making
11 183 (10.29%) Data Analysis
12 182 (10.24%) Verification and Validation
13 179 (10.07%) Business Intelligence
14 178 (10.01%) DevOps
15 177 (9.96%) Software Engineering
16 173 (9.73%) Machine Learning
17 168 (9.45%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 166 (9.34%) Data Validation
19 164 (9.22%) User Acceptance Testing
Programming Languages
1 460 (25.87%) Python
2 375 (21.09%) SQL
3 81 (4.56%) C++
4 78 (4.39%) Java
5 72 (4.05%) C
6 52 (2.92%) Go
7 50 (2.81%) JavaScript
8 49 (2.76%) C#
9 39 (2.19%) MATLAB
10 29 (1.63%) PowerShell
11 28 (1.57%) Bash
12 22 (1.24%) T-SQL
13 21 (1.18%) Embedded C
14 18 (1.01%) Embedded C++
14 18 (1.01%) Scala
14 18 (1.01%) TypeScript
15 15 (0.84%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 12 (0.67%) R
17 10 (0.56%) ABAP
17 10 (0.56%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 359 (20.19%) Degree
2 228 (12.82%) Security Cleared
3 123 (6.92%) BPSS Clearance
4 122 (6.86%) SC Cleared
5 75 (4.22%) DV Cleared
5 75 (4.22%) Master's Degree
6 40 (2.25%) Computer Science Degree
7 31 (1.74%) Chartered Engineer
8 28 (1.57%) CISSP
8 28 (1.57%) PhD
9 27 (1.52%) HNC
10 24 (1.35%) ACCA
10 24 (1.35%) CIMA
10 24 (1.35%) PMI Certification
11 22 (1.24%) AWS Certification
11 22 (1.24%) CISM
12 21 (1.18%) CISA
12 21 (1.18%) SANS
13 19 (1.07%) HND
14 17 (0.96%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 303 (17.04%) Data Quality
2 241 (13.55%) QA
3 75 (4.22%) Accessibility
4 57 (3.21%) GDPR
5 38 (2.14%) GRC
6 25 (1.41%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 24 (1.35%) IEC 61508
8 20 (1.12%) NIST
9 18 (1.01%) SLA
10 17 (0.96%) PMO
11 15 (0.84%) IFRS
12 14 (0.79%) GAAP
12 14 (0.79%) ISO 26262
13 13 (0.73%) GxP
13 13 (0.73%) ISO 9001
13 13 (0.73%) WCAG
14 12 (0.67%) ISO/IEC 15288
15 11 (0.62%) COBIT
15 11 (0.62%) GMP
15 11 (0.62%) SOC 2
System Software
1 76 (4.27%) Docker
2 62 (3.49%) Firmware
3 41 (2.31%) Active Directory
4 27 (1.52%) Embedded Firmware
4 27 (1.52%) Virtual Machines
5 21 (1.18%) vSphere
6 17 (0.96%) VMware Infrastructure
7 8 (0.45%) KVM
8 5 (0.28%) Hyper-V
9 2 (0.11%) VMware ESXi
10 1 (0.056%) BitLocker
10 1 (0.056%) ProxySG
10 1 (0.056%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 78 (4.39%) Kubernetes
2 74 (4.16%) Terraform
3 40 (2.25%) Grafana
4 26 (1.46%) Ansible
5 24 (1.35%) Functional Safety
6 17 (0.96%) Prometheus
7 12 (0.67%) Puppet
8 10 (0.56%) Cilium
9 7 (0.39%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
9 7 (0.39%) Kibana
9 7 (0.39%) SCCM
9 7 (0.39%) Single Sign-On
10 4 (0.22%) Argo
10 4 (0.22%) Microsoft Intune
10 4 (0.22%) Nessus
10 4 (0.22%) Nmap
11 3 (0.17%) FortiGate
11 3 (0.17%) HP Fortify
11 3 (0.17%) Rancher
11 3 (0.17%) WMI
Vendors
1 247 (13.89%) Microsoft
2 116 (6.52%) SAP
3 101 (5.68%) Oracle
4 56 (3.15%) Salesforce
5 47 (2.64%) Databricks
6 38 (2.14%) ServiceNow
7 36 (2.02%) VMware
8 34 (1.91%) Google
8 34 (1.91%) Red Hat
9 32 (1.80%) Cisco
10 29 (1.63%) CrowdStrike
11 24 (1.35%) Palo Alto
12 22 (1.24%) Tenable
13 16 (0.90%) IBM
14 15 (0.84%) McAfee
15 14 (0.79%) Adobe
15 14 (0.79%) Foundry
16 13 (0.73%) EMC
16 13 (0.73%) Splunk
17 12 (0.67%) Informatica