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

6 months to
12 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 6,304 7,338 11,198
As % of all permanent jobs in England 9.69% 18.71% 15.17%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.40% 19.97% 17.38%
Number of salaries quoted 4,400 4,201 8,008
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 £86,250 £90,000 £87,500
UK median annual salary £45,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -18.18% +10.00% -9.95%

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 50,827 36,748 64,434
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 78.13% 93.68% 87.29%
Number of salaries quoted 31,403 20,173 50,460
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% -11.31%

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 12 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 12 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 1,908 £67,500 +3.85% 1,046
North of England -17 1,298 £41,500 -12.63% 633
South East -5 1,187 £43,500 -15.09% 846
Midlands -18 850 £37,500 -25.00% 441
North West -16 664 £45,000 -10.00% 348
South West -4 544 £43,500 -13.00% 320
West Midlands -21 506 £42,500 -22.73% 263
Yorkshire -5 503 £35,000 -17.65% 215
East of England -9 416 £40,000 -20.00% 281
East Midlands -2 341 £35,000 -11.95% 178
North East -6 131 £45,000 +2.64% 84
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 (5.16%) Microsoft Exchange
2 284 (4.51%) SharePoint
3 79 (1.25%) Confluence
4 57 (0.90%) Apache
5 56 (0.89%) CMS
6 45 (0.71%) IIS
7 44 (0.70%) Apache Airflow
8 39 (0.62%) Apache Spark
9 29 (0.46%) WordPress
10 20 (0.32%) Palantir Foundry
11 13 (0.21%) SAS
12 11 (0.17%) nginx
13 9 (0.14%) Drupal
14 8 (0.13%) Anypoint
14 8 (0.13%) Oracle SOA Suite
15 7 (0.11%) Exchange Server 2007
15 7 (0.11%) Exchange Server 2010
15 7 (0.11%) Exchange Server 2013
16 4 (0.063%) Headless CMS
16 4 (0.063%) Totara
Applications
1 441 (7.00%) Microsoft Office
2 338 (5.36%) Microsoft Excel
3 72 (1.14%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 38 (0.60%) Spreadsheet
5 32 (0.51%) MS Visio
6 27 (0.43%) Microsoft Project
7 18 (0.29%) AutoCAD
7 18 (0.29%) Maya
8 14 (0.22%) Photoshop
9 11 (0.17%) SOLIDWORKS
10 10 (0.16%) Adobe Illustrator
11 8 (0.13%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 8 (0.13%) Chatbot
12 5 (0.079%) Adobe XD
13 4 (0.063%) Fusion 360
13 4 (0.063%) Trello
14 3 (0.048%) CATIA
14 3 (0.048%) Elementor
14 3 (0.048%) InDesign
14 3 (0.048%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 59 (0.94%) Dynamics CRM
2 46 (0.73%) SAP S/4HANA
3 32 (0.51%) NetSuite
4 20 (0.32%) Salesforce CRM
5 17 (0.27%) Endur
5 17 (0.27%) SAP CO
5 17 (0.27%) Shopify
6 14 (0.22%) Dynamics NAV
7 10 (0.16%) iTrent
7 10 (0.16%) Maximo
7 10 (0.16%) SAP ERP
7 10 (0.16%) Workday HCM
8 8 (0.13%) SAP FI
8 8 (0.13%) SAP FI/CO
9 7 (0.11%) Oracle Payables
9 7 (0.11%) Oracle Receivables
9 7 (0.11%) Payment Gateway
9 7 (0.11%) Q-Pulse
9 7 (0.11%) Sage 200
10 6 (0.095%) SAP Hybris
Cloud Services
1 1,360 (21.57%) Azure
2 970 (15.39%) Microsoft 365
3 761 (12.07%) AWS
4 448 (7.11%) Power Platform
5 376 (5.96%) SaaS
6 279 (4.43%) Entra ID
7 265 (4.20%) GCP
8 170 (2.70%) Azure DevOps
9 165 (2.62%) GitHub
10 161 (2.55%) Serverless
11 125 (1.98%) Power Automate
12 102 (1.62%) Dynamics 365
13 95 (1.51%) Google Workspace
14 89 (1.41%) Amazon S3
15 83 (1.32%) PowerApps
16 81 (1.28%) AWS Lambda
17 80 (1.27%) AWS CloudFormation
18 74 (1.17%) GitHub Actions
19 70 (1.11%) PaaS
20 67 (1.06%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 406 (6.44%) DNS
2 377 (5.98%) Firewall
3 342 (5.43%) DHCP
4 237 (3.76%) VPN
5 213 (3.38%) TCP/IP
6 210 (3.33%) WAN
7 201 (3.19%) Wi-Fi
8 175 (2.78%) LAN
9 157 (2.49%) Broadband
10 125 (1.98%) VLAN
11 91 (1.44%) Wireless
12 88 (1.40%) VoIP
13 68 (1.08%) SD-WAN
14 50 (0.79%) Network Security
15 48 (0.76%) Remote Desktop
16 46 (0.73%) Internet
17 42 (0.67%) SAN
18 31 (0.49%) Structured Cabling
19 28 (0.44%) BGP
19 28 (0.44%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 368 (5.84%) Power BI
2 276 (4.38%) SQL Server
3 136 (2.16%) Data Warehouse
4 124 (1.97%) Tableau
5 119 (1.89%) NoSQL
6 115 (1.82%) Relational Database
7 108 (1.71%) PostgreSQL
8 93 (1.48%) Amazon RDS
9 90 (1.43%) MySQL
10 66 (1.05%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 55 (0.87%) MongoDB
12 52 (0.82%) Amazon Redshift
13 49 (0.78%) Metadata
14 48 (0.76%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 47 (0.75%) DynamoDB
16 46 (0.73%) Power Query
17 44 (0.70%) Data Lake
18 43 (0.68%) Azure SQL Database
19 38 (0.60%) Big Data
20 26 (0.41%) Redis
Development Applications
1 279 (4.43%) Git
2 233 (3.70%) JIRA
3 103 (1.63%) Jenkins
4 98 (1.55%) GitLab
5 52 (0.82%) Selenium
6 28 (0.44%) Visual Studio
7 23 (0.36%) Cypress.io
8 20 (0.32%) TeamCity
9 19 (0.30%) Burp Suite
9 19 (0.30%) LabVIEW
9 19 (0.30%) Maven
9 19 (0.30%) Metasploit
10 18 (0.29%) Robot Framework
11 16 (0.25%) CircleCI
11 16 (0.25%) Octopus Deploy
12 15 (0.24%) Bitbucket
12 15 (0.24%) Cucumber
12 15 (0.24%) JUnit
12 15 (0.24%) SonarQube
13 14 (0.22%) Snyk
General
1 3,154 (50.03%) Social Skills
2 1,900 (30.14%) Analytical Skills
3 1,407 (22.32%) Finance
4 438 (6.95%) Organisational Skills
5 357 (5.66%) Marketing
6 325 (5.16%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 308 (4.89%) Retail
8 300 (4.76%) Law
9 293 (4.65%) Legal
10 290 (4.60%) Banking
11 287 (4.55%) Public Sector
12 267 (4.24%) Manufacturing
13 171 (2.71%) Presentation Skills
14 167 (2.65%) Telecoms
15 135 (2.14%) Electronics
16 104 (1.65%) Games
17 103 (1.63%) Documentation Skills
18 88 (1.40%) Financial Institution
19 80 (1.27%) Influencing Skills
20 79 (1.25%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 952 (15.10%) Analyst
2 747 (11.85%) IT Support
3 730 (11.58%) Senior
4 643 (10.20%) Support Engineer
5 587 (9.31%) Developer
6 366 (5.81%) IT Engineer
7 360 (5.71%) Lead
8 320 (5.08%) Support Analyst
9 310 (4.92%) IT Support Engineer
10 245 (3.89%) Consultant
11 222 (3.52%) Business Analyst
12 218 (3.46%) Technical Support
13 206 (3.27%) Architect
14 201 (3.19%) Support Technician
15 200 (3.17%) 2nd Line Support
16 168 (2.66%) Infrastructure Engineer
17 165 (2.62%) Software Engineer
18 159 (2.52%) IT Analyst
18 159 (2.52%) Technical Engineer
19 149 (2.36%) Technical Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 257 (4.08%) .NET
2 251 (3.98%) React
3 211 (3.35%) HTML
4 169 (2.68%) CSS
5 153 (2.43%) Node.js
6 123 (1.95%) REST
7 110 (1.74%) RESTful
8 74 (1.17%) AngularJS
9 68 (1.08%) Middleware
10 66 (1.05%) Spring
10 66 (1.05%) Vue
11 65 (1.03%) Kafka
12 58 (0.92%) SOAP
13 57 (0.90%) JSON
14 55 (0.87%) XML
15 53 (0.84%) Django
16 48 (0.76%) Flask
17 47 (0.75%) .NET Framework
18 45 (0.71%) Spring Boot
19 43 (0.68%) FastAPI
Miscellaneous
1 489 (7.76%) Driving Licence
2 452 (7.17%) Onboarding
3 402 (6.38%) Self-Motivation
4 204 (3.24%) Management Information System
5 173 (2.74%) Cloud Native
6 150 (2.38%) Analytical Mindset
7 138 (2.19%) Legacy Systems
8 133 (2.11%) Product Ownership
9 122 (1.94%) Distributed Systems
10 117 (1.86%) Data Centre
11 108 (1.71%) Enterprise Software
12 99 (1.57%) Mobile App
13 92 (1.46%) Social Media
14 79 (1.25%) Data Structures
15 69 (1.09%) Low-Code
16 60 (0.95%) Algorithms
17 58 (0.92%) Security Posture
18 53 (0.84%) Virtual Team
19 50 (0.79%) EPoS
20 46 (0.73%) CCTV
Operating Systems
1 1,105 (17.53%) Windows
2 424 (6.73%) Windows Server
3 391 (6.20%) Linux
4 168 (2.66%) Windows 10
5 116 (1.84%) Windows Server 2016
6 113 (1.79%) Android
7 93 (1.48%) Mac OS
8 78 (1.24%) Apple iOS
9 60 (0.95%) Unix
10 55 (0.87%) Windows Server 2019
11 34 (0.54%) Windows Server 2012
12 33 (0.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 24 (0.38%) CentOS
13 24 (0.38%) Windows 7
14 19 (0.30%) Ubuntu
15 15 (0.24%) VMS
16 11 (0.17%) Windows 8
17 10 (0.16%) Mac OS X
18 7 (0.11%) Debian
19 5 (0.079%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,145 (18.16%) Continuous Improvement
2 1,031 (16.35%) Agile
3 941 (14.93%) Customer Service
4 668 (10.60%) Mentoring
5 636 (10.09%) AI
6 635 (10.07%) Decision-Making
7 629 (9.98%) Analytics
8 627 (9.95%) CI/CD
9 600 (9.52%) DevOps
10 562 (8.91%) ITIL
11 552 (8.76%) Project Management
12 518 (8.22%) Business Intelligence
13 496 (7.87%) Computer Science
14 483 (7.66%) Stakeholder Management
15 434 (6.88%) Cybersecurity
16 421 (6.68%) Software Engineering
17 366 (5.81%) Process Improvement
18 365 (5.79%) Coaching
19 359 (5.69%) CRM
19 359 (5.69%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 946 (15.01%) Python
2 898 (14.24%) SQL
3 421 (6.68%) JavaScript
4 323 (5.12%) PowerShell
5 312 (4.95%) Java
6 279 (4.43%) C#
7 179 (2.84%) TypeScript
8 152 (2.41%) Bash
9 87 (1.38%) PHP
10 79 (1.25%) C++
11 75 (1.19%) Go
12 66 (1.05%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 56 (0.89%) Scala
14 45 (0.71%) T-SQL
15 42 (0.67%) C
16 39 (0.62%) Kotlin
17 36 (0.57%) R
18 33 (0.52%) Apex Code
19 27 (0.43%) Bicep
20 26 (0.41%) Rust
Qualifications
1 1,307 (20.73%) Degree
2 489 (7.76%) Security Cleared
3 306 (4.85%) SC Cleared
4 241 (3.82%) Computer Science Degree
5 186 (2.95%) Microsoft Certification
6 178 (2.82%) DBS Check
7 122 (1.94%) Master's Degree
8 116 (1.84%) DV Cleared
9 103 (1.63%) CISSP
10 92 (1.46%) BPSS Clearance
11 85 (1.35%) Cisco Certification
12 81 (1.28%) ACCA
13 79 (1.25%) A+ Certification
14 71 (1.13%) CIMA
15 62 (0.98%) PMI Certification
16 61 (0.97%) CCNA
16 61 (0.97%) Network+ Certification
17 54 (0.86%) AWS Certification
18 48 (0.76%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
18 48 (0.76%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 299 (4.74%) QA
2 256 (4.06%) Data Quality
3 221 (3.51%) GDPR
4 160 (2.54%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 157 (2.49%) Cyber Essentials
6 132 (2.09%) SLA
7 128 (2.03%) Accessibility
8 121 (1.92%) PCI DSS
9 107 (1.70%) NIST
10 46 (0.73%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 32 (0.51%) ISO 9001
12 29 (0.46%) Actionable Recommendations
13 27 (0.43%) SOC 2
14 22 (0.35%) PMO
15 21 (0.33%) GRC
16 20 (0.32%) COBIT
17 13 (0.21%) GMP
18 10 (0.16%) WCAG
19 9 (0.14%) ISO/IEC 20000
19 9 (0.14%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 743 (11.79%) Active Directory
2 298 (4.73%) Docker
3 230 (3.65%) Hyper-V
4 161 (2.55%) VMware Infrastructure
5 63 (1.00%) Terminal Server
6 29 (0.46%) Virtual Desktop
7 28 (0.44%) Firmware
8 25 (0.40%) Virtual Machines
9 15 (0.24%) vSphere
10 13 (0.21%) KVM
11 11 (0.17%) VMware ESXi
12 10 (0.16%) VMware Workstation
13 7 (0.11%) IAG
14 6 (0.095%) Virtual Servers
14 6 (0.095%) XenApp
15 4 (0.063%) Microsoft Virtual Server
16 2 (0.032%) Slurm Workload Manager
16 2 (0.032%) vCloud
16 2 (0.032%) VMware NSX
17 1 (0.016%) Lustre
Systems Management
1 281 (4.46%) Terraform
2 270 (4.28%) Microsoft Intune
3 222 (3.52%) Kubernetes
4 149 (2.36%) Ansible
5 84 (1.33%) Grafana
6 77 (1.22%) SCCM
7 59 (0.94%) Prometheus
8 32 (0.51%) BMC PATROL
9 28 (0.44%) Nagios
10 26 (0.41%) Single Sign-On
11 22 (0.35%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 20 (0.32%) Jamf Pro
13 15 (0.24%) Argo
13 15 (0.24%) Cisco CUCM
14 14 (0.22%) Autotask
15 12 (0.19%) Kibana
15 12 (0.19%) vCenter Server
15 12 (0.19%) ZABBIX
16 11 (0.17%) FortiGate
16 11 (0.17%) Nessus
Vendors
1 1,663 (26.38%) Microsoft
2 270 (4.28%) VMware
3 213 (3.38%) Oracle
4 192 (3.05%) SAP
5 158 (2.51%) Google
6 146 (2.32%) Cisco
6 146 (2.32%) Salesforce
7 128 (2.03%) Veeam
8 125 (1.98%) ServiceNow
9 120 (1.90%) SolarWinds
10 116 (1.84%) Splunk
11 105 (1.67%) Databricks
12 91 (1.44%) Adobe
13 84 (1.33%) Apple
14 64 (1.02%) Tanium
15 63 (1.00%) Brocade
15 63 (1.00%) Nimble Storage
16 56 (0.89%) Dell
17 54 (0.86%) Sage
18 48 (0.76%) Atlassian