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

6 months to
28 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 7 4 7
Rank change year-on-year -3 +3 +4
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 8,337 8,395 10,841
As % of all permanent jobs in England 8.61% 19.19% 14.84%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.74% 21.60% 18.32%
Number of salaries quoted 5,809 4,747 5,326
10th Percentile £27,750 £26,250 £26,750
25th Percentile £33,250 £31,250 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £47,500 £45,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +5.56% -10.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £66,250 £67,500 £70,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £86,250 £85,000
UK median annual salary £47,166 £45,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +4.81% -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 71,000 38,870 59,186
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 73.37% 88.85% 80.99%
Number of salaries quoted 50,434 22,497 37,418
10th Percentile £31,250 £28,500 £31,250
25th Percentile £42,000 £37,500 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £56,460
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -2.59% -8.94%
75th Percentile £80,000 £76,250 £75,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £97,500 £95,000
UK median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +9.09% - -8.33%

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 28 August 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 28 August 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 -6 2,259 £65,000 - 4,615
North of England -7 1,681 £45,000 +5.88% 1,376
South East -4 1,597 £42,500 - 1,492
Midlands -7 1,218 £42,500 +10.39% 949
North West -7 878 £45,000 -2.17% 749
South West -4 827 £45,000 +25.00% 835
East of England -3 683 £42,500 +21.43% 695
West Midlands -9 682 £42,500 -2.42% 580
Yorkshire -9 548 £42,500 +21.43% 447
East Midlands -9 534 £41,000 +17.14% 371
North East -5 255 £48,250 +20.63% 201
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
1 472 (5.66%) SharePoint
2 397 (4.76%) Microsoft Exchange
3 102 (1.22%) Confluence
4 58 (0.70%) IIS
5 53 (0.64%) CMS
6 46 (0.55%) Apache
7 37 (0.44%) Apache Airflow
7 37 (0.44%) Apache Spark
8 34 (0.41%) WordPress
9 21 (0.25%) SAS
10 13 (0.16%) Palantir Foundry
11 11 (0.13%) nginx
11 11 (0.13%) WebLogic
11 11 (0.13%) WebSphere
12 9 (0.11%) Jupyter
12 9 (0.11%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 8 (0.096%) Exchange Server 2013
13 8 (0.096%) Tomcat
14 7 (0.084%) OpenEdge
15 5 (0.060%) CICS
Applications
1 529 (6.35%) Microsoft Office
2 477 (5.72%) Microsoft Excel
3 86 (1.03%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 48 (0.58%) Spreadsheet
5 47 (0.56%) MS Visio
6 42 (0.50%) Microsoft Project
7 34 (0.41%) AutoCAD
8 22 (0.26%) Simulink
9 17 (0.20%) Revit
10 15 (0.18%) Chatbot
11 10 (0.12%) SOLIDWORKS
12 8 (0.096%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 8 (0.096%) Trello
13 7 (0.084%) Adobe Illustrator
13 7 (0.084%) Fusion 360
14 6 (0.072%) Autodesk Flame
14 6 (0.072%) Baselight
14 6 (0.072%) EPLAN
14 6 (0.072%) Navisworks
15 5 (0.060%) Lightworks
Business Applications
1 87 (1.04%) Dynamics CRM
2 84 (1.01%) SAP S/4HANA
3 67 (0.80%) NetSuite
4 32 (0.38%) Shopify
5 22 (0.26%) Oracle EBS
6 17 (0.20%) Magento
7 15 (0.18%) IBM Planning Analytics
8 14 (0.17%) Elite 3E
8 14 (0.17%) SAP Business One
8 14 (0.17%) SAP ERP
9 13 (0.16%) Salesforce CRM
10 12 (0.14%) Dynamics AX
11 11 (0.13%) Oracle ERP
12 10 (0.12%) JDE EnterpriseOne
12 10 (0.12%) Oracle Applications
12 10 (0.12%) Sage X3
13 9 (0.11%) iTrent
13 9 (0.11%) Primavera
13 9 (0.11%) Sage 50
13 9 (0.11%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 1,713 (20.55%) Azure
2 1,299 (15.58%) Microsoft 365
3 1,022 (12.26%) AWS
4 699 (8.38%) Power Platform
5 406 (4.87%) Entra ID
6 370 (4.44%) SaaS
7 345 (4.14%) GCP
8 209 (2.51%) Azure DevOps
9 207 (2.48%) GitHub
10 187 (2.24%) Serverless
11 181 (2.17%) Dynamics 365
12 180 (2.16%) Power Automate
13 153 (1.84%) PowerApps
14 121 (1.45%) Microsoft Copilot
15 118 (1.42%) OneDrive
16 101 (1.21%) Amazon S3
17 94 (1.13%) GitHub Actions
18 87 (1.04%) AWS Lambda
19 83 (1.00%) AWS CloudFormation
20 77 (0.92%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 505 (6.06%) Firewall
2 465 (5.58%) DNS
3 394 (4.73%) DHCP
4 318 (3.81%) VPN
5 285 (3.42%) TCP/IP
6 207 (2.48%) Wi-Fi
7 199 (2.39%) WAN
8 196 (2.35%) LAN
9 177 (2.12%) Wireless
10 167 (2.00%) VLAN
11 151 (1.81%) Network Security
12 109 (1.31%) Broadband
13 106 (1.27%) VoIP
14 51 (0.61%) Internet
15 41 (0.49%) HTTP
16 40 (0.48%) SAN
17 35 (0.42%) OSPF
17 35 (0.42%) SD-WAN
18 34 (0.41%) BGP
19 33 (0.40%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 544 (6.53%) Power BI
2 415 (4.98%) SQL Server
3 144 (1.73%) MySQL
4 143 (1.72%) Data Warehouse
5 138 (1.66%) Amazon RDS
6 136 (1.63%) Relational Database
7 122 (1.46%) Tableau
8 116 (1.39%) PostgreSQL
9 105 (1.26%) NoSQL
10 95 (1.14%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 84 (1.01%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 63 (0.76%) Big Data
13 62 (0.74%) MongoDB
14 58 (0.70%) Azure SQL Database
15 57 (0.68%) Data Lake
16 52 (0.62%) Power Query
17 48 (0.58%) Metadata
18 43 (0.52%) DynamoDB
19 41 (0.49%) Electronic Patient Records
20 36 (0.43%) Looker
Development Applications
1 376 (4.51%) Git
2 293 (3.51%) JIRA
3 133 (1.60%) Jenkins
4 106 (1.27%) GitLab
5 40 (0.48%) Selenium
6 37 (0.44%) Eclipse
7 36 (0.43%) Claude Code
8 34 (0.41%) JUnit
9 33 (0.40%) Subversion
10 29 (0.35%) Cucumber
11 25 (0.30%) Postman
12 24 (0.29%) Rational DOORS
13 22 (0.26%) Cypress.io
14 21 (0.25%) Bitbucket
14 21 (0.25%) Oracle Forms
15 18 (0.22%) SonarQube
16 17 (0.20%) Visual Studio
17 16 (0.19%) Chocolatey
18 15 (0.18%) MLflow
19 14 (0.17%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 4,087 (49.02%) Social Skills
2 2,534 (30.39%) Analytical Skills
3 1,661 (19.92%) Finance
4 650 (7.80%) Manufacturing
5 535 (6.42%) Organisational Skills
6 502 (6.02%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 495 (5.94%) Law
8 417 (5.00%) Retail
9 356 (4.27%) Marketing
10 324 (3.89%) Public Sector
11 319 (3.83%) Legal
12 303 (3.63%) Banking
13 233 (2.79%) Electronics
14 219 (2.63%) Aerospace
15 189 (2.27%) Telecoms
16 179 (2.15%) Influencing Skills
17 157 (1.88%) Presentation Skills
18 107 (1.28%) Documentation Skills
19 91 (1.09%) Advertising
19 91 (1.09%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 1,084 (13.00%) Analyst
2 917 (11.00%) Senior
3 811 (9.73%) Developer
4 706 (8.47%) IT Support
5 576 (6.91%) Support Engineer
6 512 (6.14%) Lead
7 419 (5.03%) Consultant
8 393 (4.71%) IT Engineer
9 345 (4.14%) Support Analyst
10 309 (3.71%) Software Engineer
11 303 (3.63%) IT Support Engineer
12 279 (3.35%) Architect
13 260 (3.12%) Technical Support
14 255 (3.06%) Systems Engineer
15 246 (2.95%) Support Technician
16 218 (2.61%) IT Technician
17 214 (2.57%) Technical Engineer
18 191 (2.29%) Data Engineer
19 190 (2.28%) Technical Support Engineer
20 178 (2.14%) Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 380 (4.56%) .NET
2 371 (4.45%) Terraform
3 307 (3.68%) React
4 273 (3.27%) REST
5 260 (3.12%) HTML
6 202 (2.42%) CSS
7 178 (2.14%) RESTful
8 146 (1.75%) Node.js
9 117 (1.40%) SOAP
10 114 (1.37%) Spring
11 103 (1.24%) JSON
12 102 (1.22%) AngularJS
13 95 (1.14%) ASP.NET
14 93 (1.12%) Vue
15 91 (1.09%) Web Services
16 90 (1.08%) Kafka
17 89 (1.07%) Middleware
18 78 (0.94%) XML
19 73 (0.88%) OAuth
19 73 (0.88%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 548 (6.57%) Onboarding
2 544 (6.53%) Driving Licence
3 425 (5.10%) Self-Motivation
4 345 (4.14%) Management Information System
5 308 (3.69%) Cloud Native
6 246 (2.95%) Product Ownership
7 180 (2.16%) Data Centre
8 176 (2.11%) Legacy Systems
9 151 (1.81%) Distributed Systems
10 148 (1.78%) Enterprise Software
11 116 (1.39%) Data Structures
12 111 (1.33%) Analytical Mindset
12 111 (1.33%) Security Posture
13 102 (1.22%) NHS
14 100 (1.20%) AI Agents
15 99 (1.19%) Cyber Threat
16 95 (1.14%) Algorithms
17 91 (1.09%) Robotics
18 85 (1.02%) Virtual Team
19 83 (1.00%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 1,269 (15.22%) Windows
2 557 (6.68%) Linux
3 549 (6.59%) Windows Server
4 156 (1.87%) Windows 10
5 114 (1.37%) Windows Server 2016
6 104 (1.25%) Mac OS
7 97 (1.16%) Android
8 96 (1.15%) Apple iOS
9 55 (0.66%) Unix
10 45 (0.54%) Windows Server 2019
11 31 (0.37%) Ubuntu
12 30 (0.36%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 30 (0.36%) VMS
13 16 (0.19%) CentOS
14 14 (0.17%) Windows Server 2012
15 11 (0.13%) Debian
16 9 (0.11%) Embedded Linux
16 9 (0.11%) FreeRTOS
16 9 (0.11%) Mac OS X
17 8 (0.096%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,065 (24.77%) Continuous Improvement
2 1,367 (16.40%) Agile
3 1,273 (15.27%) Customer Service
4 1,068 (12.81%) AI
5 1,011 (12.13%) Decision-Making
6 927 (11.12%) Stakeholder Management
7 903 (10.83%) CI/CD
7 903 (10.83%) Mentoring
8 780 (9.36%) Analytics
9 775 (9.30%) Software Engineering
10 756 (9.07%) DevOps
11 692 (8.30%) Cybersecurity
12 669 (8.02%) Roadmaps
13 659 (7.90%) ITIL
14 630 (7.56%) Project Delivery
15 619 (7.42%) Business Intelligence
16 601 (7.21%) Project Management
17 600 (7.20%) Computer Science
18 560 (6.72%) Stakeholder Engagement
19 544 (6.53%) Collaborative Working
Programming Languages
1 1,302 (15.62%) SQL
2 1,178 (14.13%) Python
3 575 (6.90%) JavaScript
4 486 (5.83%) C#
5 424 (5.09%) Java
6 369 (4.43%) PowerShell
7 255 (3.06%) TypeScript
8 226 (2.71%) C++
9 174 (2.09%) Bash
10 93 (1.12%) C
11 88 (1.06%) PHP
12 75 (0.90%) Go
13 70 (0.84%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 70 (0.84%) T-SQL
14 48 (0.58%) Perl
14 48 (0.58%) Shell Script
15 45 (0.54%) Rust
16 42 (0.50%) R
17 39 (0.47%) Ruby
18 38 (0.46%) VBA
Qualifications
1 1,452 (17.42%) Degree
2 779 (9.34%) Security Cleared
3 521 (6.25%) SC Cleared
4 321 (3.85%) Computer Science Degree
5 237 (2.84%) DBS Check
6 206 (2.47%) Microsoft Certification
7 189 (2.27%) DV Cleared
8 170 (2.04%) Azure Certification
9 150 (1.80%) CISSP
10 147 (1.76%) Cisco Certification
11 142 (1.70%) BPSS Clearance
12 132 (1.58%) Master's Degree
13 122 (1.46%) HNC
14 105 (1.26%) HND
14 105 (1.26%) PMI Certification
15 85 (1.02%) CISM
16 82 (0.98%) CCNA
16 82 (0.98%) PMP
17 75 (0.90%) CCNP
18 73 (0.88%) AWS Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 491 (5.89%) QA
2 415 (4.98%) Data Quality
3 347 (4.16%) GDPR
4 232 (2.78%) Accessibility
5 225 (2.70%) SLA
6 202 (2.42%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 200 (2.40%) Cyber Essentials
8 165 (1.98%) NIST
9 142 (1.70%) PCI DSS
10 62 (0.74%) PMO
11 53 (0.64%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 40 (0.48%) GRC
13 35 (0.42%) ISO 9001
14 25 (0.30%) NCSC
14 25 (0.30%) SOC 2
15 23 (0.28%) Actionable Recommendations
16 22 (0.26%) Sarbanes-Oxley
17 21 (0.25%) COBIT
17 21 (0.25%) GMP
18 19 (0.23%) WCAG
System Software
1 847 (10.16%) Active Directory
2 363 (4.35%) Docker
3 281 (3.37%) Hyper-V
4 252 (3.02%) VMware Infrastructure
5 70 (0.84%) Terminal Server
6 58 (0.70%) Firmware
7 51 (0.61%) Virtual Desktop
8 44 (0.53%) Virtual Machines
9 35 (0.42%) vSphere
10 19 (0.23%) Embedded Firmware
11 18 (0.22%) VMware ESXi
12 12 (0.14%) KVM
13 6 (0.072%) XenApp
14 5 (0.060%) ClearTrust
14 5 (0.060%) GPFS
14 5 (0.060%) IAG
14 5 (0.060%) Squid
14 5 (0.060%) StorNext
14 5 (0.060%) Virtual Servers
14 5 (0.060%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 331 (3.97%) Kubernetes
2 283 (3.39%) Microsoft Intune
3 153 (1.84%) Ansible
4 94 (1.13%) Grafana
5 75 (0.90%) SCCM
6 62 (0.74%) Single Sign-On
7 50 (0.60%) Prometheus
8 27 (0.32%) Jamf Pro
9 26 (0.31%) FortiGate
10 22 (0.26%) Nagios
11 19 (0.23%) Puppet
12 15 (0.18%) Argo
13 13 (0.16%) Functional Safety
13 13 (0.16%) Kibana
14 12 (0.14%) Proxmox
15 11 (0.13%) Autotask
15 11 (0.13%) BMC PATROL
15 11 (0.13%) logstash
15 11 (0.13%) Nmap
16 10 (0.12%) Podman
Vendors
1 2,411 (28.92%) Microsoft
2 370 (4.44%) VMware
3 260 (3.12%) SAP
4 242 (2.90%) Google
5 239 (2.87%) Oracle
6 169 (2.03%) ServiceNow
7 168 (2.02%) Cisco
8 160 (1.92%) Salesforce
9 132 (1.58%) Veeam
10 129 (1.55%) Databricks
11 123 (1.48%) Splunk
12 111 (1.33%) SolarWinds
13 79 (0.95%) Sage
14 78 (0.94%) Tanium
15 74 (0.89%) Apple
16 71 (0.85%) Nimble Storage
17 70 (0.84%) Brocade
18 64 (0.77%) Fortinet
19 58 (0.70%) HubSpot
20 56 (0.67%) Palo Alto