Problem-Solving Job Trends in England

Problem Solving
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in England requiring Problem-Solving skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 9 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 4 7
Rank change year-on-year -5 +3 +6
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 6,228 7,400 11,170
As % of all permanent jobs in England 9.77% 18.69% 15.17%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.51% 19.94% 17.36%
Number of salaries quoted 4,358 4,211 7,999
10th Percentile £26,875 £29,500 £26,250
25th Percentile £31,250 £38,750 £33,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £55,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -18.18% +10.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £67,500 £76,000 £70,000
90th Percentile £85,865 £90,000 £87,500
UK median annual salary £45,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -18.18% +10.00% -10.00%

All Process & Methodology Skills
England

Problem-Solving 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 in England.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 49,769 37,111 64,353
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 78.05% 93.74% 87.40%
Number of salaries quoted 30,703 20,324 50,435
10th Percentile £29,750 £32,500 £29,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £45,000 £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 £77,500 £81,250 £75,000
90th Percentile £97,500 £102,500 £95,000
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -11.78%

Problem-Solving
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing Problem-Solving relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in England.

Problem-Solving job vacancy trend in England

Problem-Solving
Salary Trend in England

Salary distribution trend for jobs in England citing Problem-Solving.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in England citing Problem-Solving

Problem-Solving
Salary Histogram in England

Salary distribution for jobs citing Problem-Solving in England over the 6 months to 9 March 2026.

Salary histogram for Problem-Solving in England

Problem-Solving
Job Locations in England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Problem-Solving within the England region over the 6 months to 9 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
London -2 1,871 £67,500 +3.85% 924
North of England -17 1,298 £42,500 -10.53% 666
South East -5 1,167 £42,500 -16.61% 1,003
Midlands -17 835 £37,500 -25.00% 490
North West -17 676 £45,000 -10.00% 356
South West -4 549 £43,500 -13.00% 375
West Midlands -21 497 £42,500 -22.73% 271
Yorkshire -6 490 £34,500 -18.82% 239
East of England -11 406 £40,000 -20.00% 442
East Midlands -2 335 £35,000 -5.41% 214
North East -7 132 £45,000 - 83
Problem-Solving
UK

Problem-Solving
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England 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
1 325 (5.22%) Microsoft Exchange
2 281 (4.51%) SharePoint
3 79 (1.27%) Confluence
4 58 (0.93%) Apache
5 53 (0.85%) CMS
6 46 (0.74%) IIS
7 45 (0.72%) Apache Airflow
8 40 (0.64%) Apache Spark
9 29 (0.47%) WordPress
10 16 (0.26%) Palantir Foundry
11 12 (0.19%) SAS
12 11 (0.18%) nginx
13 8 (0.13%) Drupal
13 8 (0.13%) Oracle SOA Suite
14 7 (0.11%) Anypoint
14 7 (0.11%) Exchange Server 2007
14 7 (0.11%) Exchange Server 2010
14 7 (0.11%) Exchange Server 2013
15 4 (0.064%) Headless CMS
15 4 (0.064%) Totara
Applications
1 439 (7.05%) Microsoft Office
2 338 (5.43%) Microsoft Excel
3 70 (1.12%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 37 (0.59%) Spreadsheet
5 31 (0.50%) MS Visio
6 27 (0.43%) Microsoft Project
7 18 (0.29%) AutoCAD
7 18 (0.29%) Maya
8 13 (0.21%) Photoshop
9 11 (0.18%) SOLIDWORKS
10 9 (0.14%) Adobe Illustrator
10 9 (0.14%) Chatbot
11 8 (0.13%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 5 (0.080%) Adobe XD
13 4 (0.064%) Fusion 360
13 4 (0.064%) Trello
14 3 (0.048%) CATIA
14 3 (0.048%) Elementor
14 3 (0.048%) InDesign
14 3 (0.048%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 60 (0.96%) Dynamics CRM
2 44 (0.71%) SAP S/4HANA
3 31 (0.50%) NetSuite
4 20 (0.32%) Salesforce CRM
5 17 (0.27%) Endur
5 17 (0.27%) SAP CO
6 16 (0.26%) Shopify
7 14 (0.22%) Dynamics NAV
8 10 (0.16%) iTrent
8 10 (0.16%) Maximo
8 10 (0.16%) Workday HCM
9 9 (0.14%) SAP ERP
10 8 (0.13%) SAP FI
10 8 (0.13%) SAP FI/CO
11 7 (0.11%) Oracle Payables
11 7 (0.11%) Oracle Receivables
11 7 (0.11%) Payment Gateway
11 7 (0.11%) Q-Pulse
11 7 (0.11%) Sage 200
11 7 (0.11%) SAP Business One
Cloud Services
1 1,341 (21.53%) Azure
2 967 (15.53%) Microsoft 365
3 753 (12.09%) AWS
4 446 (7.16%) Power Platform
5 366 (5.88%) SaaS
6 279 (4.48%) Entra ID
7 255 (4.09%) GCP
8 167 (2.68%) Azure DevOps
9 161 (2.59%) GitHub
10 159 (2.55%) Serverless
11 123 (1.97%) Power Automate
12 103 (1.65%) Dynamics 365
13 95 (1.53%) Google Workspace
14 89 (1.43%) Amazon S3
15 82 (1.32%) AWS Lambda
15 82 (1.32%) PowerApps
16 79 (1.27%) AWS CloudFormation
17 70 (1.12%) GitHub Actions
18 68 (1.09%) PaaS
19 64 (1.03%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 406 (6.52%) DNS
2 370 (5.94%) Firewall
3 342 (5.49%) DHCP
4 236 (3.79%) VPN
5 210 (3.37%) TCP/IP
6 208 (3.34%) WAN
7 198 (3.18%) Wi-Fi
8 174 (2.79%) LAN
9 144 (2.31%) Broadband
10 125 (2.01%) VLAN
11 90 (1.45%) Wireless
12 86 (1.38%) VoIP
13 67 (1.08%) SD-WAN
14 49 (0.79%) Network Security
14 49 (0.79%) Remote Desktop
15 46 (0.74%) Internet
16 44 (0.71%) SAN
17 32 (0.51%) Structured Cabling
18 29 (0.47%) Unified Communications
19 28 (0.45%) BGP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 366 (5.88%) Power BI
2 277 (4.45%) SQL Server
3 139 (2.23%) Data Warehouse
4 124 (1.99%) Tableau
5 121 (1.94%) Relational Database
6 117 (1.88%) NoSQL
7 106 (1.70%) PostgreSQL
8 91 (1.46%) Amazon RDS
8 91 (1.46%) MySQL
9 65 (1.04%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 55 (0.88%) Amazon Redshift
10 55 (0.88%) MongoDB
11 51 (0.82%) Metadata
12 46 (0.74%) DynamoDB
12 46 (0.74%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 45 (0.72%) Data Lake
14 44 (0.71%) Power Query
15 41 (0.66%) Azure SQL Database
16 39 (0.63%) Big Data
17 26 (0.42%) Redis
Development Applications
1 278 (4.46%) Git
2 229 (3.68%) JIRA
3 100 (1.61%) Jenkins
4 93 (1.49%) GitLab
5 51 (0.82%) Selenium
6 28 (0.45%) Visual Studio
7 22 (0.35%) Cypress.io
8 19 (0.31%) Burp Suite
8 19 (0.31%) LabVIEW
8 19 (0.31%) Maven
8 19 (0.31%) Metasploit
8 19 (0.31%) TeamCity
9 18 (0.29%) Robot Framework
10 16 (0.26%) Bitbucket
10 16 (0.26%) Octopus Deploy
11 15 (0.24%) Cucumber
11 15 (0.24%) JUnit
11 15 (0.24%) SonarQube
12 14 (0.22%) CircleCI
12 14 (0.22%) Snyk
General
1 3,125 (50.18%) Social Skills
2 1,882 (30.22%) Analytical Skills
3 1,388 (22.29%) Finance
4 432 (6.94%) Organisational Skills
5 339 (5.44%) Marketing
6 310 (4.98%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 302 (4.85%) Retail
8 295 (4.74%) Law
9 291 (4.67%) Legal
10 282 (4.53%) Public Sector
11 281 (4.51%) Banking
12 261 (4.19%) Manufacturing
13 168 (2.70%) Presentation Skills
14 163 (2.62%) Telecoms
15 131 (2.10%) Electronics
16 99 (1.59%) Documentation Skills
17 98 (1.57%) Games
18 87 (1.40%) Financial Institution
19 86 (1.38%) Automotive
20 80 (1.28%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 943 (15.14%) Analyst
2 747 (11.99%) IT Support
3 723 (11.61%) Senior
4 644 (10.34%) Support Engineer
5 573 (9.20%) Developer
6 362 (5.81%) IT Engineer
7 356 (5.72%) Lead
8 320 (5.14%) Support Analyst
9 307 (4.93%) IT Support Engineer
10 240 (3.85%) Consultant
11 220 (3.53%) Technical Support
12 218 (3.50%) Business Analyst
13 207 (3.32%) Architect
14 205 (3.29%) Support Technician
15 196 (3.15%) 2nd Line Support
16 169 (2.71%) Infrastructure Engineer
17 160 (2.57%) Software Engineer
18 159 (2.55%) Technical Engineer
19 157 (2.52%) IT Analyst
20 151 (2.42%) Technical Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 259 (4.16%) .NET
2 249 (4.00%) React
3 212 (3.40%) HTML
4 170 (2.73%) CSS
5 149 (2.39%) Node.js
6 125 (2.01%) REST
7 110 (1.77%) RESTful
8 77 (1.24%) AngularJS
9 68 (1.09%) Middleware
10 67 (1.08%) Vue
11 66 (1.06%) Spring
12 62 (1.00%) Kafka
13 59 (0.95%) SOAP
14 58 (0.93%) JSON
15 55 (0.88%) XML
16 52 (0.83%) Django
17 47 (0.75%) Flask
18 46 (0.74%) .NET Framework
19 45 (0.72%) Spring Boot
20 43 (0.69%) ASP.NET
Miscellaneous
1 494 (7.93%) Driving Licence
2 454 (7.29%) Onboarding
3 398 (6.39%) Self-Motivation
4 201 (3.23%) Management Information System
5 166 (2.67%) Cloud Native
6 145 (2.33%) Analytical Mindset
7 136 (2.18%) Legacy Systems
8 131 (2.10%) Product Ownership
9 118 (1.89%) Data Centre
10 112 (1.80%) Distributed Systems
11 103 (1.65%) Enterprise Software
12 93 (1.49%) Mobile App
13 84 (1.35%) Social Media
14 75 (1.20%) Data Structures
15 69 (1.11%) Low-Code
16 61 (0.98%) Algorithms
17 57 (0.92%) Security Posture
18 53 (0.85%) Virtual Team
19 48 (0.77%) EPoS
20 45 (0.72%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 1,105 (17.74%) Windows
2 427 (6.86%) Windows Server
3 389 (6.25%) Linux
4 169 (2.71%) Windows 10
5 115 (1.85%) Windows Server 2016
6 110 (1.77%) Android
7 94 (1.51%) Mac OS
8 80 (1.28%) Apple iOS
9 59 (0.95%) Unix
10 55 (0.88%) Windows Server 2019
11 35 (0.56%) Windows Server 2012
12 34 (0.55%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 25 (0.40%) CentOS
14 24 (0.39%) Windows 7
15 18 (0.29%) Ubuntu
16 15 (0.24%) VMS
17 11 (0.18%) Windows 8
18 9 (0.14%) Mac OS X
19 7 (0.11%) Debian
20 5 (0.080%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,123 (18.03%) Continuous Improvement
2 1,012 (16.25%) Agile
3 931 (14.95%) Customer Service
4 652 (10.47%) Mentoring
5 621 (9.97%) AI
6 620 (9.96%) Analytics
7 616 (9.89%) Decision-Making
8 609 (9.78%) CI/CD
9 591 (9.49%) DevOps
10 550 (8.83%) ITIL
11 548 (8.80%) Project Management
12 520 (8.35%) Business Intelligence
13 492 (7.90%) Computer Science
14 471 (7.56%) Stakeholder Management
15 438 (7.03%) Cybersecurity
16 406 (6.52%) Software Engineering
17 362 (5.81%) Process Improvement
18 353 (5.67%) CRM
19 352 (5.65%) Change Management
20 348 (5.59%) Coaching
Programming Languages
1 934 (15.00%) Python
2 893 (14.34%) SQL
3 416 (6.68%) JavaScript
4 319 (5.12%) PowerShell
5 306 (4.91%) Java
6 281 (4.51%) C#
7 172 (2.76%) TypeScript
8 148 (2.38%) Bash
9 87 (1.40%) PHP
10 78 (1.25%) C++
11 66 (1.06%) Go
12 65 (1.04%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 49 (0.79%) Scala
14 45 (0.72%) T-SQL
15 42 (0.67%) C
16 36 (0.58%) R
17 33 (0.53%) Apex Code
18 32 (0.51%) Kotlin
19 27 (0.43%) Bicep
20 25 (0.40%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 1,300 (20.87%) Degree
2 486 (7.80%) Security Cleared
3 307 (4.93%) SC Cleared
4 235 (3.77%) Computer Science Degree
5 185 (2.97%) Microsoft Certification
6 174 (2.79%) DBS Check
7 126 (2.02%) Master's Degree
8 111 (1.78%) DV Cleared
9 102 (1.64%) CISSP
10 98 (1.57%) BPSS Clearance
11 83 (1.33%) Cisco Certification
12 81 (1.30%) ACCA
13 80 (1.28%) A+ Certification
14 71 (1.14%) CIMA
15 62 (1.00%) Network+ Certification
15 62 (1.00%) PMI Certification
16 58 (0.93%) CCNA
17 54 (0.87%) AWS Certification
18 49 (0.79%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
19 48 (0.77%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 296 (4.75%) QA
2 251 (4.03%) Data Quality
3 220 (3.53%) GDPR
4 163 (2.62%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 159 (2.55%) Cyber Essentials
6 132 (2.12%) SLA
7 122 (1.96%) Accessibility
8 116 (1.86%) PCI DSS
9 105 (1.69%) NIST
10 48 (0.77%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 32 (0.51%) ISO 9001
12 28 (0.45%) Actionable Recommendations
13 25 (0.40%) SOC 2
14 21 (0.34%) PMO
15 19 (0.31%) COBIT
15 19 (0.31%) GRC
16 13 (0.21%) GMP
17 10 (0.16%) WCAG
18 9 (0.14%) ISO/IEC 20000
18 9 (0.14%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 747 (11.99%) Active Directory
2 288 (4.62%) Docker
3 230 (3.69%) Hyper-V
4 160 (2.57%) VMware Infrastructure
5 63 (1.01%) Terminal Server
6 27 (0.43%) Virtual Desktop
7 25 (0.40%) Virtual Machines
8 23 (0.37%) Firmware
9 15 (0.24%) vSphere
10 12 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
11 11 (0.18%) KVM
12 10 (0.16%) VMware Workstation
13 7 (0.11%) IAG
14 6 (0.096%) Virtual Servers
15 5 (0.080%) XenApp
16 4 (0.064%) Microsoft Virtual Server
17 2 (0.032%) Postfix
17 2 (0.032%) Slurm Workload Manager
17 2 (0.032%) vCloud
17 2 (0.032%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 276 (4.43%) Terraform
2 270 (4.34%) Microsoft Intune
3 218 (3.50%) Kubernetes
4 146 (2.34%) Ansible
5 83 (1.33%) Grafana
6 77 (1.24%) SCCM
7 56 (0.90%) Prometheus
8 42 (0.67%) BMC PATROL
9 27 (0.43%) Nagios
10 26 (0.42%) Single Sign-On
11 22 (0.35%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 19 (0.31%) Jamf Pro
13 15 (0.24%) Argo
13 15 (0.24%) Cisco CUCM
14 13 (0.21%) vCenter Server
15 12 (0.19%) Autotask
15 12 (0.19%) Kibana
15 12 (0.19%) ZABBIX
16 11 (0.18%) Nessus
17 10 (0.16%) Nmap
Vendors
1 1,647 (26.45%) Microsoft
2 272 (4.37%) VMware
3 216 (3.47%) Oracle
4 194 (3.11%) SAP
5 161 (2.59%) Google
6 145 (2.33%) Cisco
7 144 (2.31%) Salesforce
8 130 (2.09%) Veeam
9 123 (1.97%) ServiceNow
10 120 (1.93%) SolarWinds
11 115 (1.85%) Splunk
12 100 (1.61%) Databricks
13 92 (1.48%) Adobe
14 85 (1.36%) Apple
15 64 (1.03%) Tanium
16 63 (1.01%) Brocade
16 63 (1.01%) Nimble Storage
17 56 (0.90%) Dell
18 54 (0.87%) Sage
19 49 (0.79%) HubSpot