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

6 months to
21 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 6,365 7,164 11,414
As % of all permanent jobs in England 9.47% 18.94% 15.18%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.18% 20.24% 17.47%
Number of salaries quoted 4,425 4,283 8,075
10th Percentile £27,000 £29,000 £26,250
25th Percentile £31,250 £37,574 £33,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,500 £55,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -17.27% +10.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £67,500 £75,625 £68,750
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% -9.09%

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 52,241 35,401 65,332
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 77.72% 93.58% 86.88%
Number of salaries quoted 32,434 20,236 50,834
10th Percentile £30,000 £32,000 £29,010
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% -11.29%

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 21 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 21 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 -3 1,961 £67,500 +3.85% 1,057
North of England -18 1,293 £41,250 -11.29% 667
South East -5 1,191 £45,000 -11.71% 860
Midlands -19 853 £37,500 -21.88% 470
North West -17 656 £42,500 -11.46% 361
South West -5 537 £43,500 -13.00% 310
Yorkshire -6 506 £35,000 -19.54% 233
West Midlands -21 500 £42,500 -20.84% 276
East of England -9 425 £40,000 -20.00% 297
East Midlands -2 350 £35,000 -6.67% 192
North East -8 131 £45,000 - 87
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
1 329 (5.17%) Microsoft Exchange
2 285 (4.48%) SharePoint
3 79 (1.24%) Confluence
4 58 (0.91%) CMS
5 53 (0.83%) Apache
6 44 (0.69%) Apache Airflow
7 38 (0.60%) IIS
8 36 (0.57%) Apache Spark
9 29 (0.46%) WordPress
10 19 (0.30%) Palantir Foundry
11 16 (0.25%) SAS
12 12 (0.19%) nginx
13 9 (0.14%) Drupal
14 8 (0.13%) Anypoint
14 8 (0.13%) Exchange Server 2007
14 8 (0.13%) Exchange Server 2010
14 8 (0.13%) Exchange Server 2013
14 8 (0.13%) Oracle SOA Suite
15 4 (0.063%) Headless CMS
15 4 (0.063%) Totara
Applications
1 444 (6.98%) Microsoft Office
2 339 (5.33%) Microsoft Excel
3 72 (1.13%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 35 (0.55%) Spreadsheet
5 33 (0.52%) MS Visio
6 28 (0.44%) Microsoft Project
7 18 (0.28%) Maya
8 16 (0.25%) AutoCAD
9 13 (0.20%) Photoshop
10 10 (0.16%) Adobe Illustrator
11 9 (0.14%) Chatbot
12 8 (0.13%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 8 (0.13%) SOLIDWORKS
13 6 (0.094%) Adobe XD
14 4 (0.063%) Fusion 360
14 4 (0.063%) Trello
15 3 (0.047%) Elementor
15 3 (0.047%) InDesign
15 3 (0.047%) Simulink
16 2 (0.031%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 64 (1.01%) Dynamics CRM
2 40 (0.63%) SAP S/4HANA
3 32 (0.50%) NetSuite
4 21 (0.33%) 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 11 (0.17%) Maximo
8 10 (0.16%) iTrent
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%) IBM Planning Analytics
11 7 (0.11%) Payment Gateway
11 7 (0.11%) Q-Pulse
11 7 (0.11%) Sage 200
12 6 (0.094%) Oracle Payables
12 6 (0.094%) SAP Hybris
Cloud Services
1 1,375 (21.60%) Azure
2 977 (15.35%) Microsoft 365
3 778 (12.22%) AWS
4 451 (7.09%) Power Platform
5 377 (5.92%) SaaS
6 282 (4.43%) GCP
7 272 (4.27%) Entra ID
8 169 (2.66%) Azure DevOps
9 165 (2.59%) GitHub
10 164 (2.58%) Serverless
11 124 (1.95%) Power Automate
12 103 (1.62%) Dynamics 365
13 92 (1.45%) Google Workspace
14 87 (1.37%) Amazon S3
15 80 (1.26%) AWS CloudFormation
15 80 (1.26%) AWS Lambda
15 80 (1.26%) PowerApps
16 76 (1.19%) GitHub Actions
17 73 (1.15%) Azure Data Factory
18 71 (1.12%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 407 (6.39%) DNS
2 377 (5.92%) Firewall
3 344 (5.40%) DHCP
4 241 (3.79%) VPN
5 214 (3.36%) WAN
6 210 (3.30%) TCP/IP
7 204 (3.21%) Wi-Fi
8 179 (2.81%) Broadband
8 179 (2.81%) LAN
9 126 (1.98%) VLAN
10 97 (1.52%) Wireless
11 88 (1.38%) VoIP
12 69 (1.08%) SD-WAN
13 52 (0.82%) Network Security
14 45 (0.71%) Remote Desktop
15 41 (0.64%) SAN
16 40 (0.63%) Internet
17 32 (0.50%) Structured Cabling
18 29 (0.46%) BGP
19 28 (0.44%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 372 (5.84%) Power BI
2 273 (4.29%) SQL Server
3 129 (2.03%) Data Warehouse
4 124 (1.95%) Tableau
5 119 (1.87%) NoSQL
6 111 (1.74%) Relational Database
7 110 (1.73%) PostgreSQL
8 93 (1.46%) Amazon RDS
9 92 (1.45%) MySQL
10 65 (1.02%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 54 (0.85%) MongoDB
12 48 (0.75%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 47 (0.74%) Amazon Redshift
13 47 (0.74%) DynamoDB
13 47 (0.74%) Power Query
14 45 (0.71%) Metadata
15 44 (0.69%) Azure SQL Database
16 42 (0.66%) Data Lake
17 40 (0.63%) Big Data
18 26 (0.41%) Redis
Development Applications
1 282 (4.43%) Git
2 233 (3.66%) JIRA
3 108 (1.70%) Jenkins
4 98 (1.54%) GitLab
5 52 (0.82%) Selenium
6 31 (0.49%) Visual Studio
7 23 (0.36%) Cypress.io
8 19 (0.30%) Burp Suite
8 19 (0.30%) LabVIEW
8 19 (0.30%) Maven
8 19 (0.30%) Metasploit
8 19 (0.30%) TeamCity
9 18 (0.28%) Robot Framework
10 17 (0.27%) CircleCI
11 16 (0.25%) Octopus Deploy
11 16 (0.25%) Rational DOORS
12 15 (0.24%) Bitbucket
12 15 (0.24%) Cucumber
12 15 (0.24%) JUnit
13 14 (0.22%) SonarQube
General
1 3,153 (49.54%) Social Skills
2 1,937 (30.43%) Analytical Skills
3 1,411 (22.17%) Finance
4 448 (7.04%) Organisational Skills
5 366 (5.75%) Marketing
6 342 (5.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 311 (4.89%) Law
8 308 (4.84%) Retail
9 306 (4.81%) Banking
10 289 (4.54%) Public Sector
11 288 (4.52%) Legal
12 262 (4.12%) Manufacturing
13 172 (2.70%) Presentation Skills
14 162 (2.55%) Telecoms
15 137 (2.15%) Electronics
16 104 (1.63%) Documentation Skills
16 104 (1.63%) Games
17 85 (1.34%) Financial Institution
18 84 (1.32%) Influencing Skills
19 69 (1.08%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 937 (14.72%) Analyst
2 746 (11.72%) IT Support
3 744 (11.69%) Senior
4 642 (10.09%) Support Engineer
5 592 (9.30%) Developer
6 375 (5.89%) Lead
7 372 (5.84%) IT Engineer
8 314 (4.93%) IT Support Engineer
9 310 (4.87%) Support Analyst
10 254 (3.99%) Consultant
11 214 (3.36%) Business Analyst
12 212 (3.33%) Architect
13 208 (3.27%) Technical Support
14 206 (3.24%) Support Technician
15 194 (3.05%) 2nd Line Support
16 174 (2.73%) Infrastructure Engineer
17 170 (2.67%) Software Engineer
18 155 (2.44%) IT Technician
19 154 (2.42%) Systems Engineer
20 153 (2.40%) Technical Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 253 (3.97%) .NET
1 253 (3.97%) React
2 221 (3.47%) HTML
3 176 (2.77%) CSS
4 160 (2.51%) Node.js
5 118 (1.85%) REST
6 112 (1.76%) RESTful
7 71 (1.12%) AngularJS
8 67 (1.05%) Spring
9 66 (1.04%) Kafka
9 66 (1.04%) Middleware
9 66 (1.04%) Vue
10 60 (0.94%) Django
11 58 (0.91%) SOAP
12 55 (0.86%) JSON
12 55 (0.86%) XML
13 51 (0.80%) Flask
14 47 (0.74%) Spring Boot
15 45 (0.71%) FastAPI
16 44 (0.69%) .NET Framework
Miscellaneous
1 467 (7.34%) Driving Licence
2 444 (6.98%) Onboarding
3 392 (6.16%) Self-Motivation
4 205 (3.22%) Management Information System
5 178 (2.80%) Cloud Native
6 151 (2.37%) Analytical Mindset
7 145 (2.28%) Legacy Systems
8 134 (2.11%) Product Ownership
9 132 (2.07%) Distributed Systems
10 125 (1.96%) Data Centre
11 108 (1.70%) Enterprise Software
12 99 (1.56%) Mobile App
13 93 (1.46%) Social Media
14 83 (1.30%) Data Structures
15 69 (1.08%) Low-Code
16 61 (0.96%) Security Posture
17 57 (0.90%) Algorithms
17 57 (0.90%) Virtual Team
18 50 (0.79%) EPoS
19 48 (0.75%) Video\Live Streaming
Operating Systems
1 1,111 (17.45%) Windows
2 425 (6.68%) Windows Server
3 410 (6.44%) Linux
4 171 (2.69%) Windows 10
5 120 (1.89%) Windows Server 2016
6 112 (1.76%) Android
7 91 (1.43%) Mac OS
8 82 (1.29%) Apple iOS
9 61 (0.96%) Unix
10 56 (0.88%) Windows Server 2019
11 35 (0.55%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 35 (0.55%) Windows Server 2012
12 27 (0.42%) CentOS
13 23 (0.36%) Windows 7
14 20 (0.31%) Ubuntu
15 16 (0.25%) VMS
16 11 (0.17%) Mac OS X
16 11 (0.17%) Windows 8
17 8 (0.13%) Debian
18 6 (0.094%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,168 (18.35%) Continuous Improvement
2 1,051 (16.51%) Agile
3 960 (15.08%) Customer Service
4 685 (10.76%) Mentoring
5 672 (10.56%) AI
6 660 (10.37%) Decision-Making
7 642 (10.09%) CI/CD
8 637 (10.01%) Analytics
9 601 (9.44%) DevOps
10 581 (9.13%) ITIL
11 552 (8.67%) Project Management
12 518 (8.14%) Business Intelligence
13 502 (7.89%) Computer Science
14 482 (7.57%) Stakeholder Management
15 434 (6.82%) Cybersecurity
16 428 (6.72%) Software Engineering
17 384 (6.03%) Coaching
18 380 (5.97%) Roadmaps
19 370 (5.81%) Process Improvement
20 368 (5.78%) CRM
Programming Languages
1 968 (15.21%) Python
2 887 (13.94%) SQL
3 431 (6.77%) JavaScript
4 315 (4.95%) PowerShell
5 312 (4.90%) Java
6 276 (4.34%) C#
7 180 (2.83%) TypeScript
8 155 (2.44%) Bash
9 87 (1.37%) PHP
10 80 (1.26%) C++
11 78 (1.23%) Go
12 67 (1.05%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 58 (0.91%) Scala
14 47 (0.74%) C
15 44 (0.69%) T-SQL
16 40 (0.63%) Kotlin
17 35 (0.55%) R
18 34 (0.53%) Apex Code
19 27 (0.42%) Rust
20 26 (0.41%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 1,307 (20.53%) Degree
2 485 (7.62%) Security Cleared
3 300 (4.71%) SC Cleared
4 245 (3.85%) Computer Science Degree
5 189 (2.97%) Microsoft Certification
6 184 (2.89%) DBS Check
7 128 (2.01%) Master's Degree
8 121 (1.90%) DV Cleared
9 106 (1.67%) CISSP
10 90 (1.41%) Cisco Certification
11 86 (1.35%) BPSS Clearance
12 82 (1.29%) ACCA
13 79 (1.24%) A+ Certification
14 74 (1.16%) CIMA
15 65 (1.02%) CCNA
15 65 (1.02%) PMI Certification
16 60 (0.94%) Network+ Certification
17 55 (0.86%) AWS Certification
18 51 (0.80%) PMP
19 48 (0.75%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 302 (4.74%) QA
2 265 (4.16%) Data Quality
3 238 (3.74%) GDPR
4 160 (2.51%) Cyber Essentials
5 159 (2.50%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 139 (2.18%) SLA
7 127 (2.00%) Accessibility
8 125 (1.96%) PCI DSS
9 113 (1.78%) NIST
10 50 (0.79%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 33 (0.52%) ISO 9001
12 30 (0.47%) SOC 2
13 29 (0.46%) Actionable Recommendations
14 24 (0.38%) PMO
15 21 (0.33%) COBIT
16 19 (0.30%) GRC
17 13 (0.20%) GMP
18 12 (0.19%) Sarbanes-Oxley
19 10 (0.16%) ITGC
20 9 (0.14%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 742 (11.66%) Active Directory
2 299 (4.70%) Docker
3 228 (3.58%) Hyper-V
4 162 (2.55%) VMware Infrastructure
5 63 (0.99%) Terminal Server
6 32 (0.50%) Firmware
7 30 (0.47%) Virtual Desktop
8 29 (0.46%) Virtual Machines
9 14 (0.22%) KVM
9 14 (0.22%) vSphere
10 10 (0.16%) VMware ESXi
10 10 (0.16%) VMware Workstation
11 7 (0.11%) IAG
11 7 (0.11%) XenApp
12 6 (0.094%) Virtual Servers
13 4 (0.063%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 3 (0.047%) Slurm Workload Manager
15 2 (0.031%) BitLocker
15 2 (0.031%) vCloud
15 2 (0.031%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 285 (4.48%) Terraform
2 266 (4.18%) Microsoft Intune
3 222 (3.49%) Kubernetes
4 153 (2.40%) Ansible
5 92 (1.45%) Grafana
6 79 (1.24%) SCCM
7 60 (0.94%) Prometheus
8 30 (0.47%) Nagios
9 26 (0.41%) Single Sign-On
10 23 (0.36%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 22 (0.35%) BMC PATROL
12 20 (0.31%) Jamf Pro
13 15 (0.24%) Argo
13 15 (0.24%) Cisco CUCM
14 14 (0.22%) Autotask
15 13 (0.20%) ZABBIX
16 12 (0.19%) FortiGate
16 12 (0.19%) Kibana
16 12 (0.19%) vCenter Server
17 11 (0.17%) Puppet
Vendors
1 1,670 (26.24%) Microsoft
2 270 (4.24%) VMware
3 206 (3.24%) Oracle
4 177 (2.78%) SAP
5 159 (2.50%) Google
6 150 (2.36%) Salesforce
7 147 (2.31%) Cisco
8 134 (2.11%) ServiceNow
9 126 (1.98%) Veeam
10 122 (1.92%) SolarWinds
11 119 (1.87%) Splunk
12 110 (1.73%) Databricks
13 93 (1.46%) Adobe
14 83 (1.30%) Apple
15 64 (1.01%) Tanium
16 63 (0.99%) Brocade
16 63 (0.99%) Nimble Storage
17 61 (0.96%) Dell
18 53 (0.83%) Sage
19 50 (0.79%) Red Hat