Validation Engineer

What Does a Professional in this Career Do?

A Validation Engineer evaluates and maintains machinery and equipment used in manufacturing, and supervises workers that use and repair the machines.

Job Outlook

There were 325 Validation Engineer job postings in North Carolina in the past year and 6743 in the United States.

In combination with other careers in the Validation Engineer industry, which includes the Validation Engineer career, the following graph shows the number of people employed for each year since 2015:

Salary

Many new Validation Engineer jobs have salaries estimated to be in the following ranges, based on the requirements and responsibilities listed in job postings from the past year.

National

The average estimated salary in the United States for this career, based on job postings in the past year, is $111,884.

State

The average estimated salary in North Carolina for this career, based on job postings in the past year, is $103,979.

Percentiles represent the percentage that is lower than the value. For example, 25% of estimated salaries for Validation Engineer postings in the United States in the past year were lower than $94,870.

Education and Experience

Posted Validation Engineer jobs typically require the following level of education. The numbers below are based on job postings in the United States from the past year. Not all job postings list education requirements.

Education Level	Percentage
Associate's Degree	0%
Bachelor's Degree	69.32%
Master's Degree	18.37%
Doctoral Degree	3.17%
Other	3.89%

Posted Validation Engineer jobs typically require the following number of years of experience. The numbers below are based on job postings in the United States from the past year. Not all job postings list experience requirements.

Years of Experience	Percentage
0 to 2 years	22.81%
3 to 5 years	47.19%
6 to 8 years	18.09%
9+ years	11.92%

Skills

Below are listings of the most common general and specialized skills Validation Engineer positions expect applicants to have as well as the most common skills that distinguish individuals from their peers. The percentage of job postings that specifically mention each skill is also listed.

Baseline Skills

A skill that is required across a broad range of occupations, including this one.

Communication (37.88%)
Operations (25.58%)
Management (24.94%)
Problem Solving (22.32%)
Troubleshooting (Problem Solving) (21.24%)
Planning (17.25%)
Leadership (16.79%)
Detail Oriented (16.33%)
Coordinating (15.3%)
Microsoft Excel (13.73%)

Defining Skills

A core skill for this occupation, it occurs frequently in job postings.

Qualification Protocols (IQ/OQ/PQ) (18.75%)
Computer System Validation (7.81%)
Commissioning Qualification Validation (CQV) (7.61%)
Project Management (24.52%)

Necessary Skills

A skill that is requested frequently in this occupation but isn’t specific to it.

Medical Devices (12.17%)
Process Validation (13.25%)
Validation Protocols (12.85%)
Title 21 Of The Code Of Federal Regulations (8.64%)
Data Analysis (9.35%)
Quality Management Systems (6.85%)
HVAC (10.25%)
Electrical Engineering (18.65%)
Debugging (8.52%)
Continuous Improvement Process (10.01%)
Building Management System (8.64%)
Computer Science (9.6%)
Manufacturing Processes (7.83%)
Systems Engineering (5.46%)
Automation (15.88%)
Auditing (16.27%)
Corrective And Preventive Action (CAPA) (9.58%)
Change Control (13.13%)
Risk Analysis (15.82%)
Control Systems (10.08%)
Biotechnology (8.26%)
Good Manufacturing Practices (25.32%)
Pharmaceuticals (22.22%)
Verification And Validation (12.55%)
Test Planning (12.47%)
Computer Engineering (6.07%)
Technical Writing (9.27%)
Python (Programming Language) (8.16%)
Mechanical Engineering (13.2%)
New Product Development (10.55%)
Commissioning (19.43%)
Root Cause Analysis (7.06%)
Industry Standards (9.8%)

Distinguishing Skills

A skill that may distinguish a subset of the occupation.

Software Validation (4.69%)
Cleaning Validation (6.88%)

Salary Boosting Skills

A professional who wishes to excel in this career path may consider developing the following highly valued skills. The percentage of job postings that specifically mention each skill is listed.

Cleaning Validation (37.49%)
Commissioning Qualification Validation (CQV) (41.46%)
Engineering Validation Tests (27.73%)

Alternative Job Titles

Sometimes employers post jobs with Validation Engineer skills but a different job title. Some common alternative job titles include:

Commissioning Engineer
Verification and Validation Engineer
Commissioning, Qualification, and Validation Engineer
Test and Validation Engineer
Process Validation Engineer
Validation Test Engineer
Silicon Validation Engineer
Product Validation Engineer
Quality Validation Engineer

Similar Occupations

If you are interested in exploring occupations with similar skills, you may want to research the following job titles. Note that we only list occupations that have at least one corresponding NC State Online and Distance Education program.

Common Employers

Here are the employers that have posted the most Validation Engineer jobs in the past year along with how many they have posted.

United States

Actalent (195)
Apple (145)
Amazon (142)
Raytheon Technologies (125)
Res Agency (106)
Precision Medicine Group (89)
Jobot (69)
Thermo Fisher Scientific (66)
Jacobs Solutions (65)
Cai (63)

North Carolina

Actalent (15)
Precision Medicine Group (14)
Pfizer (13)
Jacobs Solutions (12)
Eli Lilly (12)
Thermo Fisher Scientific (11)
Grail (8)
Quality Chemical Laboratories (7)
Zachary Piper Solutions (6)
Hitachi (5)

All wages, job posting statistics, employment trend projections, and information about skill desirability on this page represents historical data and does not guarantee future conditions. Data is provided by and downloaded regularly from Lightcast. For more information about how Lightcast gathers data and what it represents, see Lightcast Data: Basic Overview on Lightcast's Knowledge Base website.

Engineering