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

6 months to
21 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 4 7
Rank change year-on-year -4 +3 +6
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 6,521 8,796 8,318
As % of all permanent jobs in England 12.04% 18.44% 14.91%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 14.91% 20.24% 16.74%
Number of salaries quoted 4,466 3,903 5,909
10th Percentile £26,500 £31,050 £26,750
25th Percentile £30,750 £40,000 £35,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £55,000 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -18.18% +4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £65,587 £75,000 £72,500
90th Percentile £85,000 £88,750 £90,000
UK median annual salary £45,000 £55,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year -18.18% +4.76% -8.70%

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 43,730 43,449 49,691
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 80.74% 91.10% 89.06%
Number of salaries quoted 26,338 21,213 38,942
10th Percentile £28,750 £35,000 £31,000
25th Percentile £38,000 £46,250 £41,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +4.35% -8.00%
75th Percentile £76,725 £81,250 £77,500
90th Percentile £97,500 £101,000 £97,500
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £57,500
% change year-on-year -8.33% +4.35% -8.00%

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 January 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 January 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 -1 1,959 £65,000 - 889
South East -3 1,337 £41,000 -21.90% 1,346
North of England -15 1,257 £45,000 -5.26% 824
Midlands -15 873 £38,000 -24.00% 623
North West -13 691 £47,683 -4.60% 375
South West 0 578 £40,000 -24.81% 561
West Midlands -18 512 £42,500 -22.73% 299
Yorkshire -4 440 £36,500 -16.09% 324
East of England -5 420 £35,000 -31.33% 553
East Midlands +1 360 £33,000 -7.69% 315
North East -4 126 £33,500 -33.00% 136
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
1 313 (4.80%) Microsoft Exchange
2 273 (4.19%) SharePoint
3 77 (1.18%) Confluence
4 52 (0.80%) Apache
5 51 (0.78%) IIS
6 44 (0.67%) Apache Spark
7 38 (0.58%) Apache Airflow
8 31 (0.48%) CMS
9 26 (0.40%) WordPress
10 13 (0.20%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 10 (0.15%) nginx
11 10 (0.15%) SAS
12 7 (0.11%) Anypoint
12 7 (0.11%) Apache Solr
13 6 (0.092%) HCL Notes
14 5 (0.077%) Drupal
14 5 (0.077%) Exchange Server 2013
14 5 (0.077%) Umbraco
15 4 (0.061%) Camunda
16 3 (0.046%) Apache Superset
Applications
1 464 (7.12%) Microsoft Office
2 462 (7.08%) Microsoft Excel
3 93 (1.43%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 41 (0.63%) Spreadsheet
5 35 (0.54%) Maya
6 29 (0.44%) MS Visio
7 28 (0.43%) Microsoft Project
8 20 (0.31%) AutoCAD
9 15 (0.23%) Photoshop
10 13 (0.20%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 11 (0.17%) SOLIDWORKS
12 10 (0.15%) Adobe Illustrator
13 9 (0.14%) Adobe Premiere
14 5 (0.077%) Adobe After Effects
14 5 (0.077%) Adobe XD
14 5 (0.077%) Chatbot
14 5 (0.077%) Trello
15 4 (0.061%) CATIA
15 4 (0.061%) Fusion 360
15 4 (0.061%) Notion
Business Applications
1 113 (1.73%) SAP S/4HANA
2 91 (1.40%) Dynamics CRM
3 34 (0.52%) NetSuite
4 24 (0.37%) SAP CO
5 19 (0.29%) SAP FI
6 17 (0.26%) SAP FI/CO
7 16 (0.25%) Salesforce CRM
8 15 (0.23%) Endur
9 14 (0.21%) Oracle Payables
10 12 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
10 12 (0.18%) Shopify
11 11 (0.17%) Dynamics NAV
11 11 (0.17%) Oracle Assets
12 10 (0.15%) iTrent
12 10 (0.15%) Payment Gateway
12 10 (0.15%) Sage 200
12 10 (0.15%) SAP Business One
13 8 (0.12%) JDE EnterpriseOne
14 7 (0.11%) Oracle EBS
15 6 (0.092%) Exchequer
Cloud Services
1 1,451 (22.25%) Azure
2 935 (14.34%) Microsoft 365
3 714 (10.95%) AWS
4 535 (8.20%) Power Platform
5 408 (6.26%) SaaS
6 267 (4.09%) Entra ID
7 213 (3.27%) GCP
8 185 (2.84%) Azure DevOps
9 155 (2.38%) GitHub
10 142 (2.18%) Serverless
11 115 (1.76%) Power Automate
12 95 (1.46%) Dynamics 365
13 75 (1.15%) PowerApps
14 74 (1.13%) Amazon S3
15 73 (1.12%) AWS Lambda
16 70 (1.07%) AWS CloudFormation
17 66 (1.01%) Google Workspace
18 64 (0.98%) PaaS
19 63 (0.97%) Azure Data Factory
20 57 (0.87%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 416 (6.38%) DNS
2 353 (5.41%) DHCP
3 330 (5.06%) Firewall
4 211 (3.24%) VPN
5 191 (2.93%) TCP/IP
6 183 (2.81%) Wi-Fi
7 169 (2.59%) WAN
8 143 (2.19%) LAN
9 117 (1.79%) VLAN
10 90 (1.38%) VoIP
11 85 (1.30%) Broadband
11 85 (1.30%) Wireless
12 56 (0.86%) Network Security
13 54 (0.83%) Remote Desktop
14 49 (0.75%) SAN
15 48 (0.74%) Internet
16 47 (0.72%) SD-WAN
17 29 (0.44%) Unified Communications
18 27 (0.41%) Structured Cabling
19 23 (0.35%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 448 (6.87%) Power BI
2 311 (4.77%) SQL Server
3 154 (2.36%) Relational Database
4 139 (2.13%) Tableau
5 137 (2.10%) Data Warehouse
6 123 (1.89%) PostgreSQL
7 118 (1.81%) Data Lake
8 117 (1.79%) NoSQL
9 114 (1.75%) MySQL
10 113 (1.73%) Amazon RDS
11 66 (1.01%) SAP BW
12 65 (1.00%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 58 (0.89%) Metadata
13 58 (0.89%) MongoDB
14 48 (0.74%) Amazon Redshift
14 48 (0.74%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 44 (0.67%) Big Data
15 44 (0.67%) DynamoDB
16 42 (0.64%) Azure SQL Database
17 28 (0.43%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 264 (4.05%) Git
2 246 (3.77%) JIRA
3 96 (1.47%) Jenkins
4 80 (1.23%) GitLab
5 57 (0.87%) Selenium
6 24 (0.37%) Bitbucket
7 22 (0.34%) Visual Studio
8 21 (0.32%) Cypress.io
8 21 (0.32%) LabVIEW
9 20 (0.31%) Maven
10 19 (0.29%) TeamCity
11 18 (0.28%) Burp Suite
11 18 (0.28%) Metasploit
11 18 (0.28%) Robot Framework
11 18 (0.28%) SonarQube
12 17 (0.26%) Octopus Deploy
13 16 (0.25%) JUnit
14 14 (0.21%) Cucumber
14 14 (0.21%) Snyk
14 14 (0.21%) WebDriver
General
1 3,482 (53.40%) Social Skills
2 1,967 (30.16%) Analytical Skills
3 1,561 (23.94%) Finance
4 389 (5.97%) Marketing
5 351 (5.38%) Law
6 349 (5.35%) Manufacturing
7 346 (5.31%) Organisational Skills
8 339 (5.20%) Retail
9 291 (4.46%) Legal
10 283 (4.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 273 (4.19%) Public Sector
12 255 (3.91%) Banking
13 176 (2.70%) Telecoms
14 173 (2.65%) Presentation Skills
15 158 (2.42%) Electronics
16 118 (1.81%) Games
17 95 (1.46%) Influencing Skills
18 87 (1.33%) Automotive
19 82 (1.26%) Documentation Skills
20 80 (1.23%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 1,058 (16.22%) Analyst
2 807 (12.38%) Senior
3 698 (10.70%) IT Support
4 624 (9.57%) Support Engineer
5 583 (8.94%) Developer
6 449 (6.89%) Lead
7 353 (5.41%) Support Analyst
8 290 (4.45%) IT Engineer
9 288 (4.42%) Technical Support
10 252 (3.86%) Business Analyst
11 242 (3.71%) IT Support Engineer
12 223 (3.42%) Consultant
13 216 (3.31%) Architect
14 196 (3.01%) Technical Engineer
15 183 (2.81%) 2nd Line Support
15 183 (2.81%) Support Technician
15 183 (2.81%) Technical Support Engineer
16 160 (2.45%) IT Analyst
17 158 (2.42%) Systems Engineer
18 157 (2.41%) Applications Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 275 (4.22%) .NET
2 248 (3.80%) React
3 224 (3.44%) HTML
4 176 (2.70%) CSS
5 153 (2.35%) REST
6 132 (2.02%) Node.js
7 106 (1.63%) RESTful
8 97 (1.49%) AngularJS
9 70 (1.07%) Spring
9 70 (1.07%) XML
10 69 (1.06%) Vue
11 68 (1.04%) JSON
12 63 (0.97%) SOAP
13 60 (0.92%) Middleware
14 59 (0.90%) .NET Framework
15 57 (0.87%) Kafka
16 56 (0.86%) ASP.NET
17 49 (0.75%) Django
18 46 (0.71%) Flask
19 44 (0.67%) FastAPI
Miscellaneous
1 519 (7.96%) Onboarding
2 515 (7.90%) Driving Licence
3 419 (6.43%) Self-Motivation
4 211 (3.24%) Management Information System
5 196 (3.01%) Analytical Mindset
6 163 (2.50%) Cloud Native
7 156 (2.39%) Product Ownership
8 154 (2.36%) Legacy Systems
9 121 (1.86%) Data Centre
10 116 (1.78%) Enterprise Software
11 76 (1.17%) Mobile App
12 74 (1.13%) Algorithms
13 72 (1.10%) Data Structures
14 68 (1.04%) Distributed Systems
15 66 (1.01%) Virtual Team
16 62 (0.95%) Low-Code
17 55 (0.84%) FMCG
18 50 (0.77%) Security Posture
18 50 (0.77%) Social Media
19 48 (0.74%) EPoS
Operating Systems
1 1,105 (16.95%) Windows
2 437 (6.70%) Windows Server
3 411 (6.30%) Linux
4 162 (2.48%) Windows 10
5 119 (1.82%) Windows Server 2016
6 92 (1.41%) Mac OS
7 79 (1.21%) Android
8 67 (1.03%) Apple iOS
9 61 (0.94%) Unix
10 54 (0.83%) Windows Server 2019
11 32 (0.49%) Windows Server 2012
12 26 (0.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 23 (0.35%) VMS
13 23 (0.35%) Windows 7
14 14 (0.21%) CentOS
15 9 (0.14%) Ubuntu
16 6 (0.092%) Mac OS X
16 6 (0.092%) Windows Server 2008
17 5 (0.077%) Windows 8
18 4 (0.061%) OpenWrt
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,123 (17.22%) Continuous Improvement
2 1,081 (16.58%) Agile
3 960 (14.72%) Customer Service
4 743 (11.39%) Analytics
5 653 (10.01%) AI
5 653 (10.01%) Mentoring
6 635 (9.74%) Decision-Making
7 624 (9.57%) Business Intelligence
8 614 (9.42%) Project Management
9 582 (8.93%) DevOps
10 551 (8.45%) ITIL
11 533 (8.17%) CI/CD
12 519 (7.96%) Computer Science
13 489 (7.50%) Cybersecurity
14 483 (7.41%) Stakeholder Management
15 446 (6.84%) Change Management
16 440 (6.75%) ERP
17 403 (6.18%) Software Engineering
18 395 (6.06%) CRM
19 389 (5.97%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 1,009 (15.47%) SQL
2 909 (13.94%) Python
3 385 (5.90%) JavaScript
4 338 (5.18%) C#
5 318 (4.88%) PowerShell
6 311 (4.77%) Java
7 155 (2.38%) TypeScript
8 133 (2.04%) Bash
9 100 (1.53%) PHP
10 85 (1.30%) C++
11 57 (0.87%) T-SQL
12 54 (0.83%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 42 (0.64%) C
14 39 (0.60%) Go
15 37 (0.57%) R
16 33 (0.51%) Scala
17 26 (0.40%) Bicep
17 26 (0.40%) MATLAB
18 25 (0.38%) PL/SQL
19 24 (0.37%) Perl
Qualifications
1 1,567 (24.03%) Degree
2 538 (8.25%) Security Cleared
3 337 (5.17%) SC Cleared
4 249 (3.82%) Computer Science Degree
5 178 (2.73%) Microsoft Certification
6 174 (2.67%) Master's Degree
7 166 (2.55%) DBS Check
8 132 (2.02%) DV Cleared
9 107 (1.64%) CISSP
10 102 (1.56%) BPSS Clearance
11 81 (1.24%) Cisco Certification
12 76 (1.17%) ACCA
13 75 (1.15%) A+ Certification
14 65 (1.00%) Network+ Certification
15 62 (0.95%) CIMA
15 62 (0.95%) PMI Certification
16 61 (0.94%) AWS Certification
17 59 (0.90%) CISM
18 55 (0.84%) HND
19 54 (0.83%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 359 (5.51%) QA
2 343 (5.26%) Data Quality
3 204 (3.13%) GDPR
4 174 (2.67%) Cyber Essentials
5 163 (2.50%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 144 (2.21%) Accessibility
7 134 (2.05%) SLA
8 115 (1.76%) PCI DSS
9 81 (1.24%) NIST
10 47 (0.72%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 32 (0.49%) ISO 9001
12 29 (0.44%) PMO
13 24 (0.37%) Actionable Recommendations
14 16 (0.25%) GRC
15 15 (0.23%) COBIT
16 14 (0.21%) SOC 2
17 12 (0.18%) WCAG
18 11 (0.17%) ISO/IEC 20000
19 9 (0.14%) ISO 13485
20 8 (0.12%) ISO/IEC 19770
System Software
1 770 (11.81%) Active Directory
2 250 (3.83%) Docker
3 239 (3.67%) Hyper-V
4 149 (2.28%) VMware Infrastructure
5 84 (1.29%) Terminal Server
6 27 (0.41%) Firmware
7 26 (0.40%) Virtual Machines
8 20 (0.31%) VMware ESXi
9 19 (0.29%) vSphere
10 18 (0.28%) Virtual Desktop
11 10 (0.15%) KVM
12 6 (0.092%) Virtual Servers
13 4 (0.061%) VMware Workstation
14 3 (0.046%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 3 (0.046%) vCloud
15 2 (0.031%) BitLocker
15 2 (0.031%) HDFS
15 2 (0.031%) Postfix
15 2 (0.031%) RHEV
15 2 (0.031%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 277 (4.25%) Microsoft Intune
2 263 (4.03%) Terraform
3 204 (3.13%) Kubernetes
4 131 (2.01%) Ansible
5 69 (1.06%) Grafana
6 63 (0.97%) SCCM
7 46 (0.71%) Prometheus
8 42 (0.64%) BMC PATROL
9 33 (0.51%) Single Sign-On
10 20 (0.31%) Jamf Pro
10 20 (0.31%) Nagios
11 19 (0.29%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 16 (0.25%) vCenter Server
13 14 (0.21%) Argo
13 14 (0.21%) Cisco CUCM
14 12 (0.18%) FortiGate
15 11 (0.17%) Kibana
16 10 (0.15%) Nessus
16 10 (0.15%) Nmap
16 10 (0.15%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 1,707 (26.18%) Microsoft
2 415 (6.36%) SAP
3 283 (4.34%) VMware
4 279 (4.28%) Oracle
5 159 (2.44%) Salesforce
6 152 (2.33%) Cisco
7 141 (2.16%) Veeam
8 137 (2.10%) Google
9 130 (1.99%) Splunk
10 128 (1.96%) ServiceNow
11 123 (1.89%) SolarWinds
12 112 (1.72%) Databricks
13 94 (1.44%) Adobe
14 85 (1.30%) Tanium
15 84 (1.29%) Brocade
15 84 (1.29%) Nimble Storage
16 74 (1.13%) Apple
17 63 (0.97%) Sage
18 55 (0.84%) Dell
19 53 (0.81%) HubSpot