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

6 months to
2 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 7 4 7
Rank change year-on-year -3 +3 +4
Permanent jobs citing Problem-Solving 9,613 8,047 10,419
As % of all permanent jobs in England 9.25% 18.61% 15.56%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.56% 20.88% 18.90%
Number of salaries quoted 6,456 4,525 4,289
10th Percentile £27,750 £26,250 £27,500
25th Percentile £32,750 £31,250 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £46,500 £45,000 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year +3.33% -14.29% -4.55%
75th Percentile £63,750 £65,000 £71,250
90th Percentile £83,750 £85,000 £85,000
UK median annual salary £46,584 £45,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year +3.52% -14.29% -4.55%

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 76,510 38,541 55,124
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 73.60% 89.13% 82.33%
Number of salaries quoted 53,897 21,791 29,983
10th Percentile £31,250 £28,500 £32,500
25th Percentile £42,000 £36,750 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -8.33% -2.44%
75th Percentile £80,000 £76,250 £78,250
90th Percentile £100,000 £97,500 £97,500
UK median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £58,465
% change year-on-year +9.09% -5.93% -2.56%

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 2 October 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 2 October 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 2,387 £65,000 - 5,810
North of England -7 2,023 £45,000 - 1,849
South East -2 1,885 £41,585 +1.43% 2,007
Midlands -6 1,440 £42,500 +12.58% 1,272
North West -3 1,048 £45,250 -7.61% 955
South West -2 978 £45,000 +23.29% 961
East of England -1 816 £43,750 +34.62% 897
West Midlands -7 812 £42,500 - 785
East Midlands -7 626 £42,000 +29.23% 487
Yorkshire -7 612 £42,500 +26.87% 638
North East +6 372 £50,000 +49.25% 276
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
1 556 (5.78%) SharePoint
2 408 (4.24%) Microsoft Exchange
3 118 (1.23%) Confluence
4 63 (0.66%) IIS
5 54 (0.56%) Apache
6 53 (0.55%) CMS
7 50 (0.52%) Apache Spark
8 39 (0.41%) Apache Airflow
9 38 (0.40%) WordPress
10 18 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
11 14 (0.15%) Jupyter
12 13 (0.14%) nginx
12 13 (0.14%) SAS
12 13 (0.14%) WebLogic
13 11 (0.11%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 11 (0.11%) WebSphere
14 9 (0.094%) Palantir Foundry
15 7 (0.073%) CICS
15 7 (0.073%) OpenEdge
16 6 (0.062%) Tomcat
Applications
1 668 (6.95%) Microsoft Office
2 613 (6.38%) Microsoft Excel
3 130 (1.35%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 66 (0.69%) Spreadsheet
5 60 (0.62%) MS Visio
6 57 (0.59%) AutoCAD
7 51 (0.53%) Microsoft Project
8 32 (0.33%) Simulink
9 29 (0.30%) Revit
10 20 (0.21%) SOLIDWORKS
11 17 (0.18%) Chatbot
12 13 (0.14%) EPLAN
13 12 (0.12%) Navisworks
14 11 (0.11%) Autodesk Flame
14 11 (0.11%) Baselight
15 10 (0.10%) Adobe Creative Suite
16 9 (0.094%) OrCAD
17 8 (0.083%) Trello
18 6 (0.062%) Lightworks
18 6 (0.062%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 91 (0.95%) Dynamics CRM
1 91 (0.95%) SAP S/4HANA
2 83 (0.86%) NetSuite
3 40 (0.42%) Oracle EBS
4 36 (0.37%) Shopify
5 24 (0.25%) Oracle Payables
6 21 (0.22%) Dynamics AX
7 17 (0.18%) Oracle Cash Management
7 17 (0.18%) Workday HCM
8 16 (0.17%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
9 14 (0.15%) Dynamics NAV
9 14 (0.15%) Salesforce CRM
10 13 (0.14%) IBM Planning Analytics
10 13 (0.14%) Magento
10 13 (0.14%) Payment Gateway
10 13 (0.14%) SAP Business One
11 12 (0.12%) Elite 3E
11 12 (0.12%) Oracle Applications
12 11 (0.11%) Oracle ERP
12 11 (0.11%) Primavera
Cloud Services
1 1,808 (18.81%) Azure
2 1,458 (15.17%) Microsoft 365
3 1,073 (11.16%) AWS
4 805 (8.37%) Power Platform
5 476 (4.95%) Entra ID
6 418 (4.35%) SaaS
7 356 (3.70%) GCP
8 248 (2.58%) Azure DevOps
9 228 (2.37%) GitHub
10 206 (2.14%) Power Automate
11 194 (2.02%) Dynamics 365
12 185 (1.92%) Serverless
13 168 (1.75%) PowerApps
14 158 (1.64%) OneDrive
15 156 (1.62%) Microsoft Copilot
16 116 (1.21%) Amazon S3
17 109 (1.13%) GitHub Actions
18 102 (1.06%) Google Workspace
19 93 (0.97%) AWS CloudFormation
20 88 (0.92%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 531 (5.52%) Firewall
2 513 (5.34%) DNS
3 422 (4.39%) DHCP
4 364 (3.79%) VPN
5 301 (3.13%) TCP/IP
6 247 (2.57%) Wi-Fi
7 204 (2.12%) LAN
8 203 (2.11%) WAN
9 201 (2.09%) Wireless
10 184 (1.91%) VLAN
11 170 (1.77%) Network Security
12 111 (1.15%) VoIP
13 66 (0.69%) Internet
14 61 (0.63%) Broadband
15 40 (0.42%) SAN
16 39 (0.41%) BGP
17 38 (0.40%) HTTP
18 36 (0.37%) SD-WAN
19 35 (0.36%) SSL
20 33 (0.34%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 622 (6.47%) Power BI
2 426 (4.43%) SQL Server
3 165 (1.72%) Relational Database
4 151 (1.57%) Data Warehouse
5 141 (1.47%) MySQL
6 134 (1.39%) Amazon RDS
7 129 (1.34%) PostgreSQL
8 123 (1.28%) Tableau
9 101 (1.05%) NoSQL
10 87 (0.91%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 75 (0.78%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 72 (0.75%) Big Data
13 70 (0.73%) Azure SQL Database
13 70 (0.73%) Data Lake
14 66 (0.69%) Metadata
15 63 (0.66%) MongoDB
16 58 (0.60%) Power Query
17 42 (0.44%) DynamoDB
18 40 (0.42%) Electronic Patient Records
19 37 (0.38%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 395 (4.11%) Git
2 333 (3.46%) JIRA
3 154 (1.60%) Jenkins
4 125 (1.30%) GitLab
5 45 (0.47%) Claude Code
6 44 (0.46%) Selenium
7 42 (0.44%) Eclipse
8 35 (0.36%) JUnit
8 35 (0.36%) Subversion
9 31 (0.32%) Cucumber
10 27 (0.28%) Cypress.io
11 26 (0.27%) Oracle Forms
12 25 (0.26%) Postman
12 25 (0.26%) TeamCity
13 23 (0.24%) Rational DOORS
14 22 (0.23%) Bitbucket
15 19 (0.20%) LabVIEW
16 18 (0.19%) SonarQube
17 15 (0.16%) Maven
17 15 (0.16%) MLflow
General
1 4,846 (50.41%) Social Skills
2 2,827 (29.41%) Analytical Skills
3 1,915 (19.92%) Finance
4 954 (9.92%) Manufacturing
5 770 (8.01%) Organisational Skills
6 561 (5.84%) Retail
7 558 (5.80%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 537 (5.59%) Law
9 412 (4.29%) Marketing
10 402 (4.18%) Public Sector
11 373 (3.88%) Legal
12 337 (3.51%) Electronics
13 304 (3.16%) Aerospace
14 293 (3.05%) Banking
15 245 (2.55%) Telecoms
16 199 (2.07%) Influencing Skills
17 190 (1.98%) Presentation Skills
18 158 (1.64%) Automotive
19 142 (1.48%) Documentation Skills
20 110 (1.14%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 1,236 (12.86%) Analyst
2 1,038 (10.80%) Senior
3 819 (8.52%) Developer
4 787 (8.19%) IT Support
5 618 (6.43%) Support Engineer
6 543 (5.65%) Lead
7 445 (4.63%) Consultant
8 424 (4.41%) Support Analyst
9 417 (4.34%) IT Engineer
10 325 (3.38%) Software Engineer
11 321 (3.34%) IT Support Engineer
12 289 (3.01%) Technical Support
13 274 (2.85%) Architect
14 267 (2.78%) Support Technician
15 244 (2.54%) IT Technician
16 239 (2.49%) Technical Engineer
17 236 (2.46%) Systems Engineer
18 225 (2.34%) Administrator
19 214 (2.23%) Technical Support Engineer
20 210 (2.18%) Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 408 (4.24%) .NET
2 399 (4.15%) Terraform
3 318 (3.31%) React
4 303 (3.15%) REST
5 260 (2.70%) HTML
6 197 (2.05%) CSS
7 182 (1.89%) RESTful
8 153 (1.59%) Node.js
9 122 (1.27%) Spring
10 115 (1.20%) Web Services
11 114 (1.19%) SOAP
12 105 (1.09%) JSON
13 104 (1.08%) AngularJS
14 99 (1.03%) ASP.NET
15 97 (1.01%) Kafka
16 96 (1.00%) XML
17 92 (0.96%) Middleware
18 87 (0.91%) Vue
19 83 (0.86%) Spring Boot
20 64 (0.67%) LangChain
Miscellaneous
1 723 (7.52%) Driving Licence
2 685 (7.13%) Onboarding
3 504 (5.24%) Self-Motivation
4 439 (4.57%) Management Information System
5 349 (3.63%) Cloud Native
6 251 (2.61%) Product Ownership
7 195 (2.03%) Enterprise Software
8 183 (1.90%) Data Centre
9 166 (1.73%) Legacy Systems
10 149 (1.55%) Robotics
11 139 (1.45%) Distributed Systems
12 125 (1.30%) Security Posture
13 124 (1.29%) AI Agents
14 122 (1.27%) Cyber Threat
15 118 (1.23%) Analytical Mindset
16 112 (1.17%) NHS
17 111 (1.15%) Data Structures
18 101 (1.05%) Algorithms
18 101 (1.05%) IoT
19 87 (0.91%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 1,402 (14.58%) Windows
2 579 (6.02%) Windows Server
3 553 (5.75%) Linux
4 162 (1.69%) Windows 10
5 122 (1.27%) Mac OS
6 104 (1.08%) Apple iOS
7 98 (1.02%) Windows Server 2016
8 96 (1.00%) Android
9 54 (0.56%) Unix
10 47 (0.49%) Windows Server 2019
11 29 (0.30%) Ubuntu
11 29 (0.30%) VMS
12 27 (0.28%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 15 (0.16%) Embedded Linux
14 10 (0.10%) FreeRTOS
15 9 (0.094%) Debian
15 9 (0.094%) Rocky
16 8 (0.083%) CentOS
17 7 (0.073%) Windows Server 2012
18 5 (0.052%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,523 (26.25%) Continuous Improvement
2 1,565 (16.28%) Customer Service
3 1,492 (15.52%) Agile
4 1,240 (12.90%) AI
5 1,210 (12.59%) Stakeholder Management
6 1,104 (11.48%) Decision-Making
7 1,002 (10.42%) Mentoring
8 973 (10.12%) CI/CD
9 862 (8.97%) Analytics
10 817 (8.50%) Software Engineering
11 811 (8.44%) DevOps
12 804 (8.36%) Project Delivery
13 774 (8.05%) Cybersecurity
14 698 (7.26%) Project Management
15 697 (7.25%) Business Intelligence
16 678 (7.05%) Collaborative Working
17 673 (7.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 667 (6.94%) Roadmaps
19 664 (6.91%) ITIL
20 655 (6.81%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 1,405 (14.62%) SQL
2 1,226 (12.75%) Python
3 580 (6.03%) JavaScript
4 509 (5.29%) C#
5 458 (4.76%) Java
6 392 (4.08%) PowerShell
7 285 (2.96%) TypeScript
8 254 (2.64%) C++
9 180 (1.87%) Bash
10 106 (1.10%) C
11 80 (0.83%) Go
11 80 (0.83%) PHP
12 74 (0.77%) T-SQL
13 72 (0.75%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 56 (0.58%) PL/SQL
15 55 (0.57%) R
16 53 (0.55%) Rust
17 49 (0.51%) Ruby
18 47 (0.49%) Shell Script
19 45 (0.47%) Perl
Qualifications
1 1,688 (17.56%) Degree
2 901 (9.37%) Security Cleared
3 607 (6.31%) SC Cleared
4 344 (3.58%) Computer Science Degree
5 277 (2.88%) DBS Check
6 247 (2.57%) HNC
7 227 (2.36%) Microsoft Certification
8 212 (2.21%) HND
9 205 (2.13%) DV Cleared
10 187 (1.95%) Azure Certification
11 161 (1.67%) BPSS Clearance
12 152 (1.58%) Master's Degree
13 147 (1.53%) CISSP
14 145 (1.51%) Cisco Certification
15 100 (1.04%) PMI Certification
16 90 (0.94%) AWS Certification
17 88 (0.92%) Chartered Engineer
18 86 (0.89%) CISM
19 85 (0.88%) ACCA
20 81 (0.84%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 523 (5.44%) QA
2 474 (4.93%) Data Quality
3 380 (3.95%) GDPR
4 268 (2.79%) Accessibility
5 240 (2.50%) SLA
6 222 (2.31%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 191 (1.99%) Cyber Essentials
8 154 (1.60%) NIST
9 139 (1.45%) PCI DSS
10 72 (0.75%) PMO
11 51 (0.53%) ISO 9001
12 49 (0.51%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 46 (0.48%) GRC
14 31 (0.32%) NCSC
15 30 (0.31%) Actionable Recommendations
16 24 (0.25%) SOC 2
17 22 (0.23%) DO-254
17 22 (0.23%) Sarbanes-Oxley
18 20 (0.21%) GMP
18 20 (0.21%) Good Clinical Practice
System Software
1 919 (9.56%) Active Directory
2 379 (3.94%) Docker
3 288 (3.00%) Hyper-V
4 252 (2.62%) VMware Infrastructure
5 72 (0.75%) Firmware
6 63 (0.66%) Terminal Server
7 50 (0.52%) Virtual Desktop
7 50 (0.52%) Virtual Machines
8 34 (0.35%) vSphere
9 28 (0.29%) Embedded Firmware
10 19 (0.20%) VMware ESXi
11 16 (0.17%) Virtual Servers
12 10 (0.10%) GPFS
12 10 (0.10%) StorNext
13 9 (0.094%) KVM
14 7 (0.073%) IAG
15 6 (0.062%) VMware NSX
16 5 (0.052%) ClearTrust
16 5 (0.052%) Squid
17 4 (0.042%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 375 (3.90%) Kubernetes
2 314 (3.27%) Microsoft Intune
3 148 (1.54%) Ansible
4 103 (1.07%) Grafana
5 75 (0.78%) Single Sign-On
6 67 (0.70%) SCCM
7 58 (0.60%) Prometheus
8 50 (0.52%) BMC PATROL
9 31 (0.32%) Jamf Pro
10 25 (0.26%) FortiGate
11 21 (0.22%) Argo
12 18 (0.19%) Functional Safety
12 18 (0.19%) Nagios
13 16 (0.17%) Kibana
14 15 (0.16%) Puppet
15 14 (0.15%) Progress Chef
16 12 (0.12%) logstash
16 12 (0.12%) Nmap
17 11 (0.11%) Autotask
18 10 (0.10%) Proxmox
Vendors
1 2,838 (29.52%) Microsoft
2 380 (3.95%) VMware
3 324 (3.37%) SAP
4 298 (3.10%) Google
5 275 (2.86%) Oracle
6 187 (1.95%) ServiceNow
7 182 (1.89%) Salesforce
8 172 (1.79%) Cisco
9 140 (1.46%) Databricks
10 137 (1.43%) Veeam
11 125 (1.30%) Splunk
12 115 (1.20%) Sage
13 95 (0.99%) SolarWinds
13 95 (0.99%) Workday
14 89 (0.93%) Apple
15 79 (0.82%) Fortinet
16 71 (0.74%) Tanium
17 69 (0.72%) HubSpot
18 66 (0.69%) Siemens
19 64 (0.67%) Brocade