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 5 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 7 4 7
Rank change year-on-year -3 +3 +4
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 8,512 8,230 10,337
As % of all permanent jobs in England 8.67% 19.07% 14.92%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.84% 21.53% 18.42%
Number of salaries quoted 5,899 4,608 4,796
10th Percentile £27,750 £26,250 £27,000
25th Percentile £33,250 £31,250 £36,785
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £47,500 £45,000 £51,500
Median % change year-on-year +5.56% -12.62% -6.36%
75th Percentile £65,640 £66,250 £70,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £86,250 £85,000
UK median annual salary £47,500 £45,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +5.56% -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 71,905 38,217 56,104
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 73.27% 88.53% 80.99%
Number of salaries quoted 51,202 22,024 33,984
10th Percentile £31,250 £28,500 £31,250
25th Percentile £42,500 £37,397 £41,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -4.35% -8.00%
75th Percentile £80,000 £76,250 £76,250
90th Percentile £100,000 £97,500 £95,000
UK median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £57,500
% change year-on-year +9.09% -4.35% -4.17%

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 5 September 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 5 September 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 2,272 £65,000 - 3,587
North of England -8 1,721 £45,000 +9.66% 1,115
South East -4 1,633 £42,500 - 1,288
Midlands -7 1,247 £42,500 +11.84% 889
North West -8 893 £45,000 - 575
South West -4 857 £45,000 +28.57% 726
East of England -4 705 £42,500 +21.43% 592
West Midlands -8 694 £42,500 -2.42% 552
Yorkshire -8 558 £42,500 +21.43% 377
East Midlands -9 551 £41,000 +17.14% 338
North East -2 270 £48,500 +23.57% 183
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
1 491 (5.77%) SharePoint
2 392 (4.61%) Microsoft Exchange
3 102 (1.20%) Confluence
4 60 (0.70%) IIS
5 48 (0.56%) Apache
6 44 (0.52%) CMS
7 40 (0.47%) Apache Spark
8 37 (0.43%) Apache Airflow
9 35 (0.41%) WordPress
10 19 (0.22%) SAS
11 13 (0.15%) Palantir Foundry
12 11 (0.13%) WebLogic
12 11 (0.13%) WebSphere
13 10 (0.12%) nginx
14 9 (0.11%) Jupyter
14 9 (0.11%) Oracle SOA Suite
15 8 (0.094%) Oracle Workflow
16 7 (0.082%) Exchange Server 2013
16 7 (0.082%) OpenEdge
16 7 (0.082%) Tomcat
Applications
1 542 (6.37%) Microsoft Office
2 491 (5.77%) Microsoft Excel
3 92 (1.08%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 49 (0.58%) Spreadsheet
5 46 (0.54%) MS Visio
6 43 (0.51%) Microsoft Project
7 34 (0.40%) AutoCAD
8 25 (0.29%) Simulink
9 19 (0.22%) Revit
10 16 (0.19%) Chatbot
11 10 (0.12%) SOLIDWORKS
12 8 (0.094%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 8 (0.094%) Autodesk Flame
12 8 (0.094%) Baselight
12 8 (0.094%) Trello
13 7 (0.082%) Adobe Illustrator
13 7 (0.082%) Fusion 360
14 6 (0.070%) EPLAN
14 6 (0.070%) Navisworks
15 5 (0.059%) Lightworks
Business Applications
1 86 (1.01%) Dynamics CRM
2 83 (0.98%) SAP S/4HANA
3 72 (0.85%) NetSuite
4 32 (0.38%) Shopify
5 29 (0.34%) Oracle EBS
6 16 (0.19%) Magento
7 14 (0.16%) Elite 3E
7 14 (0.16%) IBM Planning Analytics
7 14 (0.16%) SAP Business One
8 13 (0.15%) Dynamics AX
8 13 (0.15%) Oracle Payables
8 13 (0.15%) Salesforce CRM
9 12 (0.14%) SAP ERP
10 11 (0.13%) Dynamics NAV
10 11 (0.13%) Oracle ERP
11 10 (0.12%) JDE EnterpriseOne
11 10 (0.12%) Oracle Applications
11 10 (0.12%) Sage X3
11 10 (0.12%) Workday HCM
12 9 (0.11%) Sage 50
Cloud Services
1 1,745 (20.50%) Azure
2 1,335 (15.68%) Microsoft 365
3 1,038 (12.19%) AWS
4 721 (8.47%) Power Platform
5 417 (4.90%) Entra ID
6 373 (4.38%) SaaS
7 349 (4.10%) GCP
8 220 (2.58%) Azure DevOps
9 212 (2.49%) GitHub
10 188 (2.21%) Power Automate
11 187 (2.20%) Serverless
12 186 (2.19%) Dynamics 365
13 161 (1.89%) PowerApps
14 125 (1.47%) Microsoft Copilot
14 125 (1.47%) OneDrive
15 102 (1.20%) Amazon S3
16 98 (1.15%) GitHub Actions
17 87 (1.02%) AWS Lambda
18 84 (0.99%) AWS CloudFormation
19 81 (0.95%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 513 (6.03%) Firewall
2 482 (5.66%) DNS
3 410 (4.82%) DHCP
4 334 (3.92%) VPN
5 291 (3.42%) TCP/IP
6 215 (2.53%) Wi-Fi
7 196 (2.30%) WAN
8 193 (2.27%) LAN
9 187 (2.20%) Wireless
10 177 (2.08%) VLAN
11 152 (1.79%) Network Security
12 108 (1.27%) VoIP
13 105 (1.23%) Broadband
14 54 (0.63%) Internet
15 41 (0.48%) SAN
16 40 (0.47%) HTTP
17 34 (0.40%) BGP
17 34 (0.40%) OSPF
17 34 (0.40%) SD-WAN
17 34 (0.40%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 565 (6.64%) Power BI
2 421 (4.95%) SQL Server
3 146 (1.72%) Data Warehouse
4 145 (1.70%) Relational Database
5 139 (1.63%) MySQL
6 137 (1.61%) Amazon RDS
7 125 (1.47%) Tableau
8 117 (1.37%) PostgreSQL
9 105 (1.23%) NoSQL
10 95 (1.12%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 84 (0.99%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 64 (0.75%) Big Data
13 63 (0.74%) MongoDB
14 62 (0.73%) Azure SQL Database
15 61 (0.72%) Data Lake
16 56 (0.66%) Power Query
17 52 (0.61%) Metadata
18 43 (0.51%) DynamoDB
19 41 (0.48%) Electronic Patient Records
20 37 (0.43%) Looker
Development Applications
1 376 (4.42%) Git
2 295 (3.47%) JIRA
3 139 (1.63%) Jenkins
4 106 (1.25%) GitLab
5 40 (0.47%) Selenium
6 39 (0.46%) Eclipse
7 38 (0.45%) Claude Code
8 34 (0.40%) JUnit
9 33 (0.39%) Subversion
10 29 (0.34%) Cucumber
11 24 (0.28%) Postman
12 23 (0.27%) Rational DOORS
13 22 (0.26%) Cypress.io
13 22 (0.26%) Oracle Forms
14 21 (0.25%) Bitbucket
15 18 (0.21%) SonarQube
16 16 (0.19%) Chocolatey
16 16 (0.19%) Visual Studio
17 15 (0.18%) MLflow
18 14 (0.16%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 4,185 (49.17%) Social Skills
2 2,585 (30.37%) Analytical Skills
3 1,680 (19.74%) Finance
4 677 (7.95%) Manufacturing
5 558 (6.56%) Organisational Skills
6 508 (5.97%) Law
7 505 (5.93%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 416 (4.89%) Retail
9 355 (4.17%) Marketing
10 341 (4.01%) Public Sector
11 325 (3.82%) Legal
12 292 (3.43%) Banking
13 244 (2.87%) Electronics
14 228 (2.68%) Aerospace
15 188 (2.21%) Telecoms
16 186 (2.19%) Influencing Skills
17 160 (1.88%) Presentation Skills
18 107 (1.26%) Documentation Skills
19 102 (1.20%) Automotive
20 93 (1.09%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 1,111 (13.05%) Analyst
2 933 (10.96%) Senior
3 810 (9.52%) Developer
4 724 (8.51%) IT Support
5 577 (6.78%) Support Engineer
6 516 (6.06%) Lead
7 422 (4.96%) Consultant
8 399 (4.69%) IT Engineer
9 365 (4.29%) Support Analyst
10 321 (3.77%) Software Engineer
11 307 (3.61%) IT Support Engineer
12 280 (3.29%) Architect
13 262 (3.08%) Technical Support
14 256 (3.01%) Systems Engineer
15 249 (2.93%) Support Technician
16 222 (2.61%) IT Technician
17 216 (2.54%) Technical Engineer
18 194 (2.28%) Data Engineer
19 192 (2.26%) Technical Support Engineer
20 182 (2.14%) Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 382 (4.49%) .NET
2 370 (4.35%) Terraform
3 307 (3.61%) React
4 280 (3.29%) REST
5 262 (3.08%) HTML
6 202 (2.37%) CSS
7 181 (2.13%) RESTful
8 147 (1.73%) Node.js
9 118 (1.39%) SOAP
10 117 (1.37%) Spring
11 103 (1.21%) JSON
12 102 (1.20%) AngularJS
13 99 (1.16%) Web Services
14 96 (1.13%) ASP.NET
15 93 (1.09%) Vue
16 91 (1.07%) Kafka
17 87 (1.02%) Middleware
17 87 (1.02%) XML
18 76 (0.89%) Spring Boot
19 72 (0.85%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 571 (6.71%) Onboarding
2 566 (6.65%) Driving Licence
3 442 (5.19%) Self-Motivation
4 353 (4.15%) Management Information System
5 312 (3.67%) Cloud Native
6 249 (2.93%) Product Ownership
7 184 (2.16%) Data Centre
8 178 (2.09%) Legacy Systems
9 160 (1.88%) Enterprise Software
10 149 (1.75%) Distributed Systems
11 116 (1.36%) Analytical Mindset
12 115 (1.35%) Data Structures
13 113 (1.33%) Security Posture
14 108 (1.27%) Cyber Threat
15 105 (1.23%) NHS
15 105 (1.23%) Robotics
16 102 (1.20%) AI Agents
17 91 (1.07%) Algorithms
18 86 (1.01%) Virtual Team
19 85 (1.00%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 1,304 (15.32%) Windows
2 563 (6.61%) Linux
3 553 (6.50%) Windows Server
4 158 (1.86%) Windows 10
5 112 (1.32%) Windows Server 2016
6 106 (1.25%) Mac OS
7 98 (1.15%) Apple iOS
8 95 (1.12%) Android
9 55 (0.65%) Unix
10 50 (0.59%) Windows Server 2019
11 31 (0.36%) Ubuntu
11 31 (0.36%) VMS
12 28 (0.33%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 13 (0.15%) CentOS
14 11 (0.13%) Debian
14 11 (0.13%) Embedded Linux
14 11 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
15 9 (0.11%) FreeRTOS
15 9 (0.11%) Mac OS X
15 9 (0.11%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,126 (24.98%) Continuous Improvement
2 1,392 (16.35%) Agile
3 1,322 (15.53%) Customer Service
4 1,108 (13.02%) AI
5 1,023 (12.02%) Decision-Making
6 975 (11.45%) Stakeholder Management
7 925 (10.87%) Mentoring
8 917 (10.77%) CI/CD
9 798 (9.38%) Analytics
10 794 (9.33%) Software Engineering
11 763 (8.96%) DevOps
12 708 (8.32%) Cybersecurity
13 672 (7.89%) Roadmaps
14 665 (7.81%) Project Delivery
15 662 (7.78%) ITIL
16 642 (7.54%) Business Intelligence
17 621 (7.30%) Project Management
18 609 (7.15%) Computer Science
19 577 (6.78%) Stakeholder Engagement
20 560 (6.58%) Collaborative Working
Programming Languages
1 1,330 (15.63%) SQL
2 1,188 (13.96%) Python
3 575 (6.76%) JavaScript
4 492 (5.78%) C#
5 433 (5.09%) Java
6 380 (4.46%) PowerShell
7 261 (3.07%) TypeScript
8 230 (2.70%) C++
9 170 (2.00%) Bash
10 96 (1.13%) C
11 84 (0.99%) PHP
12 76 (0.89%) Go
13 74 (0.87%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 74 (0.87%) T-SQL
14 48 (0.56%) Shell Script
15 47 (0.55%) Perl
15 47 (0.55%) Rust
16 44 (0.52%) PL/SQL
16 44 (0.52%) R
16 44 (0.52%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 1,492 (17.53%) Degree
2 803 (9.43%) Security Cleared
3 536 (6.30%) SC Cleared
4 322 (3.78%) Computer Science Degree
5 240 (2.82%) DBS Check
6 205 (2.41%) Microsoft Certification
7 196 (2.30%) DV Cleared
8 176 (2.07%) Azure Certification
9 149 (1.75%) CISSP
10 147 (1.73%) Cisco Certification
11 143 (1.68%) BPSS Clearance
12 136 (1.60%) HNC
13 133 (1.56%) Master's Degree
14 125 (1.47%) HND
15 106 (1.25%) PMI Certification
16 84 (0.99%) CISM
17 83 (0.98%) PMP
18 82 (0.96%) CCNA
19 75 (0.88%) CCNP
20 74 (0.87%) AWS Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 498 (5.85%) QA
2 429 (5.04%) Data Quality
3 362 (4.25%) GDPR
4 239 (2.81%) Accessibility
5 227 (2.67%) SLA
6 204 (2.40%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 201 (2.36%) Cyber Essentials
8 162 (1.90%) NIST
9 142 (1.67%) PCI DSS
10 64 (0.75%) PMO
11 55 (0.65%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 41 (0.48%) GRC
13 37 (0.43%) ISO 9001
14 26 (0.31%) NCSC
15 25 (0.29%) SOC 2
16 23 (0.27%) Actionable Recommendations
17 22 (0.26%) Sarbanes-Oxley
18 21 (0.25%) COBIT
19 20 (0.23%) DO-254
20 18 (0.21%) WCAG
System Software
1 871 (10.23%) Active Directory
2 369 (4.34%) Docker
3 287 (3.37%) Hyper-V
4 257 (3.02%) VMware Infrastructure
5 70 (0.82%) Terminal Server
6 62 (0.73%) Firmware
7 52 (0.61%) Virtual Desktop
8 47 (0.55%) Virtual Machines
9 35 (0.41%) vSphere
10 22 (0.26%) Embedded Firmware
11 19 (0.22%) VMware ESXi
12 11 (0.13%) KVM
13 9 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
14 7 (0.082%) GPFS
14 7 (0.082%) StorNext
15 5 (0.059%) ClearTrust
15 5 (0.059%) IAG
15 5 (0.059%) Slurm Workload Manager
15 5 (0.059%) Squid
15 5 (0.059%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 334 (3.92%) Kubernetes
2 291 (3.42%) Microsoft Intune
3 152 (1.79%) Ansible
4 95 (1.12%) Grafana
5 74 (0.87%) SCCM
6 67 (0.79%) Single Sign-On
7 51 (0.60%) Prometheus
8 29 (0.34%) Jamf Pro
9 26 (0.31%) FortiGate
10 19 (0.22%) Nagios
10 19 (0.22%) Puppet
11 17 (0.20%) Argo
12 14 (0.16%) BMC PATROL
13 13 (0.15%) Functional Safety
13 13 (0.15%) Kibana
14 11 (0.13%) logstash
14 11 (0.13%) Nmap
14 11 (0.13%) Proxmox
14 11 (0.13%) vCenter Server
15 10 (0.12%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 2,495 (29.31%) Microsoft
2 381 (4.48%) VMware
3 271 (3.18%) SAP
4 248 (2.91%) Google
5 247 (2.90%) Oracle
6 174 (2.04%) ServiceNow
7 168 (1.97%) Cisco
8 163 (1.91%) Salesforce
9 135 (1.59%) Databricks
10 134 (1.57%) Veeam
11 124 (1.46%) Splunk
12 106 (1.25%) SolarWinds
13 85 (1.00%) Sage
14 78 (0.92%) Tanium
15 77 (0.90%) Apple
16 71 (0.83%) Nimble Storage
17 70 (0.82%) Brocade
18 67 (0.79%) Fortinet
19 59 (0.69%) HubSpot
20 58 (0.68%) Dell